300 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. sound of his voice would sometimes make the blood run cold in the veins. His mind was of the highest poetic order, but of the most astonishing versatility.1 He could at perfect command excite a tragic horror or occasion peals of laughter, but he seldom attempted the pathetic. His imagination ascended the highest heaven of invention. When he began to speak he frequently labored under great embarrassment. He has thus been compared to an eagle rising from level ground, but as he proceeded he rose by degrees, and when he poured himself upon his career he seemed to range through heaven, earth, and sea.2 Some of his flights were as wonderful as those of Bourdaloue or Curran. The fame of his wonderful powers is confined to the few who witnessed them, and to a feeble tradition. It was his misfortune to display his talents on an obscure and circumscribed theatre, and on subjects seldom fitted to call them forth. But fortunately for us we still have as a blessed heritage his contributions to the literature of Western Pennsylvania,—contributions of value untold, and which are growing more precious day by day. In his occasional contributions to the periodicals of his day we have preserved many facts which are now the capital stock of the provincial annalist, while the articles which, as a young man, for his amusement he submitted for publication are, as it were, brands snatched out of the fire. In them are sentences here and there which the future historian will seize upon as texts and quote as authority. But his " Modern Chivalry" is undoubtedly one of the happiest hits ever made in that range of American literature. It not only exposes with a keen wit the abuses of our popular form of government, but it preserves many of the customs, provincialisms, and manners of the people of that day and generation. The,most prominent and notorious of the political and religious characters of Southwestern Pennsylvania are therein caricatured. Thus Findley, our member of Congress, appears as Traddle; James Ross and Woods as Valentine and Orson ; many of the expressions Capt. Farrago uses are merely the expressions and the opinions of Brackenridge himself, and doubtless in almost every chief character therein delineated he intended to, and actually did, portray or make allusion to some prominent actor in the farce of the Whiskey Insurrection, if we only had the clew to find it out. As to his style, it is pleasing, and his writings abound with apt allusions to the history, poetry, and mythology of the ancients. He excelled in repartee, and a shadow of regret cannot but pass along when we think how many brilliant jests, pathetic appeals, and ornate sentences were lost among the brown rafters of Robert Hanna's rickety log cabin. 1 The poet Bruce, of Washington County, thus describes him: " In an auld bigging dwelt a starling Wha was o' ilka bird the darling." 2 "Per omnes terrasque, tractumaque maxis, coclumque profundum." The personal habits and individual characteristics of distinguished men are always matters of curiosity and interest. Some of these characteristics in Brackenridge were marked. He never dined out or invited to dinner, and was unwilling to see company until after tea. This, therefore, was the time for persons to drop in to hear his conversation. In this none excelled him ; although during the day it was difficult to get him to say a word, except on business. It was a treat to hear him speak when he chose to unbend. He could relate a story where the illusion was so perfect that the hearer would suppose there were half a dozen characters on the stage. The famous Jeffrey, in one of the numbers of the Edinburgh Review, says that Matthews, the English comedian, was inferior to him in relating a story ; and of all men competent to judge, Jeffrey was perhaps the most competent.3 He generally walked about as he conversed, and likewise when he was speaking he was constantly moving himself. It has keen remarked that what he said on the bench while seated had nothing of his usual eloquence, and when he was eloquent there, which was but seldom, he rose upon his feet. JAMES ROSS. We regard ourselves fortunate in having access to the personal recollections of a lawyer of Western Pennsylvania, one of the principal practitioners at the bar at an early day and a judge of no mean reputation. Of these recollections and of his observations therein we shall, so far as they refer to our subject, make full. use. Judge H. M. Brackenridge, son of H. H. Brackenridge, or the " old" judge, the lawyer to whom we refer, in his " Recollections of the West" says that Mr. James Ross was at that time—the beginning of the present century—decidedly at the head of the Western bar.4 His reputation was, however, not confined to the town of Pittsburgh or State of Pennsylvania. He had occupied the point of display on the largest theatre America affords, the Senate of the United States, and there he had ranked as the equal of Bayard, Gouverneur Morris, and Giles. He had a large 3 See " Reminiscences of Thomas Carlyle," by Frauds. 4 JAMES ROSS was a Pennsylvanian, born in York County, July 12, 1762. He was educated at Pequea, under Rev. Dr. Robert Smith, and taught at Cannonsburg. He studied law in Philadelphia, and was admitted to the bar in 1784. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1790, and an able defender of the Federal Constitution. Hs was United States senator from 1794 to 1803, and a commissioner of the United States to the Western insurgents. He died at Pittsburgh, Nov. 27, 1847. He published "Speech on the Free Navigation of the Mississippi," 1803. THOMAS Smirk, one of the early practitioners at Hannastown, was a native of Scotland. He emigrated to America at an early age ; was a lawyer by profession: He was appointed deputy surveyor Feb. 9, 1769, and established himself at Bedford. He was prothonotary, clerk of the sessions, and recorder of Bedford County, colonel of the militia in the Revolution, member of the Convention of 1776, member of the State Legislature, member of the Old Congress, 1780-82, president judge of the judicial district of Cumberland, Mifflin, Huntingdon, Bedford, and Franklin Counties, 1791-94,j udge of the Supreme Conrt of Pennsylvania, 1794 to 1809. He died at Bedford June, 1809,—Arch., N. S., iv. THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 301 and noble frame, and a head of Homerian cast, indicating his capacious mind. His voice was clear and full, while his thoughts and action flowed in a majestic stream. He was remarkable for the clear and perspicuous manner of treating his subject, and he possessed a perfect command over his hearers by the self-possession which he always displayed. Sometimes he would thunder, sometimes indulge in a vein of pleasantry, but he must be classed among those prodigies of mind who, like Webster and the orators of a later day, bent the will of men by appealing to their reason, and who instruct where they do not convince by the depth of their thought and the extent of their knowledge. He never tripped or appeared at a loss for an expression. Every sentence might be written down as it was spoken, the result probably of careful preparation at first, which became a second nature. JOHN WOODS. The reputation of Mr. Woods as a skillful lawyer was also high. His person was fine, and his dress and manner bespoke the gentleman, although there was a touch of aristocratic pride about him which lessened his popularity. His voice was rather shrill and unpleasant, especially when contrasted with his manly appearance, but, like John Randolph, his ear-piercing voice often gave effect to a powerful invective. Few lawyers could manage a case with more skill. He was deeply versed in the subtilties of the law of tenures and ejectment causes. Being possessed of a handsome fortune, he rather shunned than courted practice, but in a difficult case the suitor thought himself fortunate when he could secure his assistance. STEEL SEMPLE. But the great favorite of the younger members of the bar was Steel Semple, who ought to be considered at the head of the corps of regular practitioners. In stature he was a giant of " mighty bone," and possessed a mind cast in as mighty a mould. Personally he was timid and sluggish. As a speaker his diction was elegant, sparkling, and classical. His wit was genuine. He was at the same time a prodigy of memory, a gift imparted to him in kindness to supply the want of industry, although it is not every indolent man who is thus favored. Mr. Sample was conversant with all the polite and fashionable literature of the day, and was more of a modern than his distinguished competitors. It is no less strange than true that for the few first years of his appearance at the bar his success was very doubtful. His awkward manner, his hesitation and stammering, his indolent habits occasioned many to think that he had mistaken his vocation. Judge Brackenridge, the elder, was almost the only person who saw his future eminence. He was unfortunately carried off when he had just risen to distinction. He fell a victim to that vice which unhappily has too often overtaken the most distinguished in every profession. He died when a little turned of - 20 - forty. His fame had not traveled far from the display of his powers, which is usually the case in professions which must be seen and felt to be appreciated. HENRY BALDWIN AND WILLIAM WILKINS. Two younger members of the bar were at that time rapidly rising and taking the lead in the practice of the court at Allegheny, and each of these had a respectable clientage in Westmoreland as long as they continued to practice here. They were Mr. Henry Baldwin and Mr. William Wilkins, the first afterwards distinguished as a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the other as a politician; a member of Congress, a cabinet officer, and a foreign minister. The first appearance of both these gentlemen was attended with brilliant success, although they were entirely unlike each other. Mr. Baldwin was a deeply- read lawyer and an excellent scholar, but in his person and manner remarkably plain and unstudied. He was a warm, rapid, and cogent speaker, at the same time close, logical, and subtile. He invariably exhausted his subject, but studiously avoided all ornament or unnecessary verbiage. He entered at once in medias res, and ended without peroration when he had nothing more to say. Mr. Wilkins was more than genteel in his person ; his features were cast in the Roman mould, and his dress always neat and even elegant. His manner was excellent, his voice and enunciation clear and distinct. He was diffuse in his speeches, and wanted method, argument, and depth of philosophical acumen ; but he knew those whom he addressed, as the musician knows the instrument he touches. He was, therefore, a successful and, a justly popular advocate. LEGAL ABILITY OF THE EARLY BAR. With knowledge of these one should, therefore, greatly err if he should measure the standard of prefessional ability of the lawyers who then traveled on the circuit and pleaded in these backwoods and the justices of the Supreme Court of that day who came out with them to deliver the jails, with the standard of professional ability of those attorneys who pleaded before the county justices and with the county justices themselves. At no time in the history of the Pennsylvania bar has the professional ability of those regular lawyers been rated higher than it is now. With St. Clair for prothonotary in a court in which. Brackenridge, Espy, Ross, and Smith pleaded before McKean and Yeates there might have been, as there were, some lawyers of mediocre talent and attainments, but they were not all of mediocre talent and attainments. At that day, and much later, the attention of the student was chiefly directed to the law of terms and the books of reports. The course of study embraced the more abstruse branches of the profession, such as are almost obsolete at the present day, and perhaps required a more intense strain upon the reasoning 302 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. powers. They may be called the arcana of the law, far too deep for the reach of common sense, distinctions so refined and subtile as to require to be seen through the microscope of mental vision. In the early courts the law was not so much settled as made by the most plausible and ingenious reasoner. At this day in our practice the pleadings are closer, the professional training more technical, and the bounds and limits of the law more definite and less varying. These lawyers whom we have named were regular practitioners at the Westmoreland courts and belonged to this bar. Each of them had a clientage here, they appeared regularly at the sittings of the court, and they were personally well acquainted with many of our people. But something shall now be said of those who were citizens of Westmoreland in every sense, who were here located and resident, who had their offices here, who had come to remain, and who were, strictly speaking, the bar of the county. And first as to the bench. THE BENCH. The judges learned in the law who have presided over the courts of Westmoreland since the adoption of the constitution of 1789-90, with their respective terms, have been as follows : Alexander Addison, from 1790 to 1803 ; Samuel Roberts, from 1803 to 1805 ; John Young, 1806-36; Thomas White, 1836-47; Jeremiah M. Burrell, 1847-48; John C. Knox, 184850, J. M. Burrell, 1851-55; Joseph Buffington, 1855 -71; James A. Logan, 1871-79 ; and James A. Hunter, the present incumbent. Of these, Judge Burrell, Judge Logan, and Judge Hunter were natives of the county, and were practitioners at this bar at the time of their devotion to the bench. Judge Young was a native of Scotland, but located in Westmoreland, and was a practitioner here when he was made judge. JUDGE ADDISON. Alexander Addison was a native of Ireland, born 1759. He was educated at Edinburgh, and was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Aberlowe, Scotland. He emigrated to Pennsylvania, and on Dec. 20,1785, applied to the Presbytery of Redstone to be taken under their care. The examination did not prove altogether satisfactory, but permission was granted him to preach in the bounds of the Presbytery, application having been made from the town of Washington for the stated labors of Mr. Addison. Shortly after he gave up preaching and gave his attention to the law. He finally settled at Pittsburgh as a lawyer. He was president judge of the district which included the four western counties engaged in the Whiskey Insurrection, and sat on the bench for twelve years. He was removed by impeachment, through political rancor. He was an accomplished scholar and cultivated writer. He published " Observations on Gallatin's Speech," 1798 ; " Analysis of the Report of a Committee of the Virginia Assembly," 1800; "Pennsylvania Reports," 1800. Dr. Carnahan says of him, " A more intelligent, learned, upright, and fearless judge was not to be found in the State." His charge to the grand jury during the insurrection is a noble monument of his talents and worth. He died Nov. 24,1807. OLD JUDICIAL FORMS, ETC. The judges of the Supreme Court and of the District Court in early times appeared in black gowns when they sat in the civil courts, but in scarlet gowns when they sat in the criminal court. The late Alex- ander Johnston, Esq., of Kingston House, used to say that when he wag sheriff of the county (1808) it was customary, and had been so before his incumbency, for the sheriff, at the head of the tipstaves, to go- to the house at which the judge stopped, or the residence where he lived, and on the opening day of the term escort him thence to the court-house. The sheriff; at the head of the procession, carried a, white wand or rod. The early judges were close observers of the old forms of the English procedure, and especially so in the forms of the criminal practice. The jurors were not provided with chairs till some time during Judge Young's term, but they were compelled to stand from the beginning to the end of a long, tedious trial. The only manner in which they could get relief from the weariness of a long-continued posture was for them, time about, to rest upon the shoulders of each other by bearing their weight on their hands. Under the judicial system of 1790 two associate laymen composed a part of the bench. The old associate judges were sometimes men of some ability and aptitude in the law, although this character of the gentlemen was not the rule but the exception. They could and ordinarily did transact the occasional business of the courts in the absence of the president judge. Thus at February term, 1841, in the Common Pleas minutes for Monday, Feb. 15, 1841, is this entry : "The Hon. Thomas White, having just recovered from an attack of smallpox, thought it not prudent to attend as president of our court on this week, and John Lobingier, Esq., one of his associates, being in attendance, and having received the foregoing intimation from Judge White by letter, took the bench, called the jurors, and adjourned till 10 o'clock to-morrow morning. Tuesday morning, 16th, Judge Pollock in attendance with Judge Lobingier. Grand jurors called, sworn, and charged by Judge Pollock, constables' returns made, etc., and proceeded to business in the Quarter Sessions." These associates were sometimes called assistants; for instance, the record in 1793 says, " At a court held before Hon. Alexander Addison and his assistants." Of Judge Samuel Roberts we know little. His term was short, and was not marked by any unusual THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 303 event. He first presided at June term, 1803, the term beginning on the third Monday, the 20th day of the month, and presided for the last time at December term, 1805. For those terms, as well likewise at subsequent terms, jurors were drawn on the panel from Armstrong County, and from Indiana County, to sit and try causes which were tried here at Greensburg from their vicinage. JUDGE JOHN YOUNG was born in the city of Glasgow, Scotland, on the 12th of July, 1762. He was a member of an ancient Scottish family, distinguished for its wealth, learning, and high rank, branches of it having been ennobled before the reign of the unhappy Mary, Queen of Scots. Mr. Young's father and grandfather were both surnamed John. He had three brothers, named Thomas, Douglass, and William, and one sister, named Mary. They were all liberally educated. The father of Judge Young was a wealthy merchant of Glasgow, and lived in a style becoming his station and wealth, and gained a reputation for great liberality and kindness of heart, which qualities his son inherited in an eminent degree. Through the generous impulses of a nature ever ready to serve his friends and relatives he became financially involved. He bailed his brother William for a large amount, for which debt his property was all sold, and he died in ten days after in consequence of the anxiety of mind which that event caused him. At the time of his father's death Mr. Young was a student at law, and a clerk in the office of Sir Walter Scott's father. After he had procured places for his younger brothers, he emigrated to this country, and arrived in Philadelphia when about seventeen years of age, with, it is said, but one English shilling in his pocket. Here he attracted the notice and secured the favorable attention of Mr. Duponceau, then a notary public and sworn interpreter of foreign languages. He entered his office as a student-at-law on the 1st of January, 1784. On the 28th of January, 1785, Mr. Duponceau certifies that he derived great and valuable assistance from Mr. Young in his office, both in respect to legal matters and the French language. Mr. Young afterwards entered the office of Judge Wilson, and studied law under him until his admission to the bar, Jan. 8, 1786, after which he practiced for some time in the Philadelphia and Chester County courts previous to his removal to Westmoreland County. The high character of the Scotch and Scotch Irish settlements in the western part of the State and their great prosperity induced Judge Young in 1789 to settle in Westmoreland County. He opened an office in Greensburg, then recently made the county-seat, and soon gained a large practice in this and adjoining counties by reason of his ability as a lawyer and his absolute integrity of character. His extensive. practice frequently called Mr. Young to the cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore. In Philadelphia his predilections for the teachings of Swedenborg often brought him into association with Mr. Francis Bailey and his estimable family. In this family he became acquainted with a Miss Maria Barclay, an orphan girl, to whom he was so drawn by the attraction of congenial tastes that he ultimately made her his wife. He was past twenty-four and she was past twenty-one years of age when they were married in Philadelphia by the Rev. Nicholas Collin, then rector of the Swedish Churches in Pennsylvania, with whom he had become acquainted in his inquiries about Swedenborg, whom Mr. Collin had personally known in Sweden. From the certificate of Mr. Collin it appears that Mr. Young and Mira Barclay were " joined in the banns of holy wedlock" " on the 12th day of November, in the year of Christ 1794." With this lady he lived in the strongest bonds of mutual attachment for many years, having had by her the issue of eight children,—three sons and five daughters. After the decease of this lady, beloved and respected by all, the judge contracted a second marriage with Miss Statira Barclay, a cousin of hia former wife, by whom he had two children,--a son and a daughter. Judge Young in Westmoreland County soon became known as a man of force and discretion. He was chosen in 1791, with Nehemiah Stokely, a survivor of the Revolutionary period, as a delegate to the first meeting at Pittsburgh called to consider the troubles occasioned by the act of Congress of the 3d of March, 1791, which imposed a duty upon spirits distilled within the United States. The, revolt against the " excise act," as it was called, has been known ever since as the " Whiskey Insurrection." Judge Young's participation in the negotiations between the contesting parties added largely to his popularity and materially increased his clientage. In the years 1792 and 1793, when the Indians were troublesome in the western parts of Pennsylvania, Judge Young served two terms of two months each in a military capacity. He was in some subordinate command, a captaincy it is believed, but not now positively known. He had, however, no passion for military pursuits, and soon and gladly returned to the more congenial walks of civil life in Greensburg. Judge Young continued the practice of the law with eminent success till the year 1805. In that year a vacancy occurred in the president-judgeship of the Tenth Judicial District of Pennsylvania, then composed of the counties of Somerset, Cambria, Indiana, Armstrong, and Westmoreland. At that period Thomas McKean was Governor of the State. There were many applicants for the office, and among them lawyers of the first eminence at the Greensburg bar. Letters of solicitation were forwarded by the friends of Mr. Young, and it was currently reported that the Governor said he would appoint him, because he knew 304 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. him to be qualified by his firmness, integrity, and great legal acquirements to preside over that talented though turbulent bar, but he did not like his religion! Mr. Young was in. fact appointed president judge of said district, his commission bearing date at Lancaster, the 1st of March, 1806, and held that office until the latter part of 1837, a period of thirty-one years, when, admonished by bodily infirmities, he resigned official station, and retired to private life to enjoy the repose appropriate to advanced age, and sweetened by the retrospections of a long and successful career of distinguished activity and usefulness. When Mr. Young was appointed judge he was realizing from his legal engagements and his agencies an annual income of about five thousand dollars. This income he was reluctant to relinquish, and accepted the judgeship only on the earnest solicitations of his friends. He was generally employed in all the larger cases in the civil courts of this and the adjoining counties where titles to land were the subjects of legal adjudication. His proficiency in this branch of the law and his habits as a lawyer were notably displayed in one celebrated case. When the right to the land upon which the Roman Catholic Church and Monastery near Beatty Station now stands was in dispute between the secular and the regular clergy, Mr. Young was employed on one side, and H. H. Brackenridge, Esq., the father of Judge H. M. Brackenridge, of Tarentum, and himself afterwards a judge of the Supreme Court of the State, was employed on the other. Brackenridge had been educated for the ministry, and on the trial there was a great display of ecclesiastical law and learning. The bulls of Popes and the decrees of Councils were read in the original Latin, and explained in this case with ease and accuracy, and the exact extent to which canon law was acknowledged by the common and statute law. Judge Young was at this time considered the best special pleader at the Western bar. His anxiety to sustain this nice though intricate practice in law brought him into collision with some of the members of the bar at an early day of his judicial career, which was one of the causes of an impeachment that was then gotten up against him, but which was not sustained by the Legislature. It was an abortive attempt to degrade a man whose integrity, benevolence, and general excellence of character wrung approving testimony from even his most active political opponents. The person who preferred the charges in the articles of impeachment, and who was mainly instrumental in giving them currency and in preparing the way for their introduction, was one of the leading lawyers of the Westmoreland bar, Maj. John B. Alexander. Judge Young showed his magnanimity of character in his courteous treatment of his accuser in their intercourse after the failure to impeach. As a judge he was noted for the clearness of his charges and instructions. His exposition of the law was so sound that in nearly all his cases his decisions were affirmed by the Supreme Court. As a criminal judge, he invariably leaned to the side of mercy, and that the prisoner might have a fair and impartial trial he always manifested the utmost patience and anxiety to have the very words of the witness, which oftentimes produced collisions between him and the bar. And in all cases he tempered justice with every allowable lenience. He has been known to decide causes against persons who afterwards treated him with gross disrespect, and yet, when his decision had been affirmed in the Supreme Court on writ of error, to advance moneys to the very individuals who had showered upon him indecent reproaches and abuse to relieve them from the difficulties occasioned by the decision. He was ever the warm friend and devoted advocate of women in distress, and especially of widows and orphans. A case occurred in Cambria County in the year 1831. A man by the name of Fitzgibbons, a Catholic in religion, poor, but honest and industrious, had bought a piece of land and paid for it. But afterwards it appeared that a mortgage had been recorded against the land, of which he was not aware when he made the pUrchase. On that mortgage the land was advertised to be sold. The judge, when going into court one day, had his attention arrested by a woman crying, with two or three young children about her. He inquired the cause, and learning from her that her husband's laud was to be sold on the mortgage, besides making himself acquainted with the facts in other quarters, he directed a Mr. McCabe to buy it in his own name with money which he advanced to him. Her husband, who was then lying at home sick, was told to meet him at the next court, at which time he gave him a lease at a low rate, and contracted to reconvey to him his land for the amount he gave the sheriff at the sale, on long payments, without interest, although he had been repeatedly offered a considerable advance on what he had paid for the land, on account of its value being increased by the proximity of the State improvements to it. Judge Young survived his resignation a little over three years, dying Oct. 6, 1840. His remains were buried in the Greensburg burying-ground, which is now called the St. Clair Cemetery. Judge Young was in many respects a remarkable man, and might be called eccentric in some of his habits, an evidence, however, of his originality. He was a man of deep and varied learning in fields outside of his profession. He was master of seven languages, one of which he acquired after he was seventy years of age. He was well versed in mathematics, moral and political philosophy, and polite literature. He was a brilliant Latin scholar, speaking the language fluently. He occasionally visited the Greensburg Academy when Thomas Will was the master, and the two learned men would frequently converse in the Latin tongue. He also spoke French with fluency. When THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 305 James Johns, who had been educated at St. Omers, in France, was preceptor in the academy, Judge Young frequently visited him, and the two conversed with equal readiness in French and English. When Victor Noel, a Frenchman, was arrested and imprisoned in the Somerset County jail for the murder on the Allegheny Mountains of Mr. Pollock of Ligonier Valley, Judge Young presided at the trial, because his knowledge of the French language would secure the prisoner a fair trial. He explained the indictment and other forms of the trial to the prisoner in French, who had the satisfaction to be sentenced to be hanged in the polished language of his native land. Judge Young was remarkably well informed on church history and denominational beliefs, and with the best thought in the metaphysical world. In addition to his extensive law library, he left a large collection of miscellaneous books, magazines, and pamphlets, the best kind of evidence of scholarly tastes. The religious opinions of Judge Young were in consonance with the teachings of that wonderful man, Emanuel Swedenborg. In common with many who have studied the teachings of Swedenborg, he saw in him a great teacher. When one reads what Emerson, one of the greatest philosophers of this age, has said of him, it will not be surprising why Judge Young, with his lofty ideal of justice and right living, embraced the tenets of the great Swede. Emerson says, " By force of intellect and in effect he is the last father in the church, and is not likely to have a successor. No wonder that his depth of ethical wisdom should give him influence as a teacher. To the withered traditional church yielding dry catechisms he let in nature again, and the worshiper, escaping from the vestry of verbs and texts, is surprised to find himself a party to the whole of his religion. His religion thinks for him and is of universal application. He turns it on every side, it fits every part of life, interprets and dignifies every circumstance. . . . The moral insight of Swedenborg, the correction of popular errors, the announcement of ethical laws take him out of comparison with any other modern writer, and entitle him to a place vacant for some ages among the lawgivers of mankind." Judge Young, though he became devotedly attached to his adopted country, still retained a strong affection for the mother-country. The Albion, a handsome paper published in New York, was edited by a man named John Young, and it was intended to defend the interests and express the sentiments of British subjects resident in the United States. Its heading was adorned with a handsome engraving of the " rose, shamrock, and thistle," and its motto was expressed in the following Latin words : "Coelum, non animum, mutant, qui trans mare currunt" (" They change their sky, not their affections, who cross the sea"). Of this paper Judge Young was a patron, admirer, and reader: By the failure of heirs in the direct line to the estate of Easter Culmore, in the county of Stirling, Scotland, Judge Young became Laird of Forrester, being next of kin in collateral degree. He was thus an American judge and Scottish laird at the same time. A romantic interest is attached to the story of this inheritance, uniting as it does in the same individual the republican simplicity of a new world and the ancestral pride of the old, which compelled him to assume the name of Forrester in addition to that of Young. The revenues of this Scotch estate amounted during the first half of the century to about three hundred pounds sterling, or fifteen hundred dollars yearly. When Judge Young emigrated to this country money was very scarce and lands very cheap. He made judicious investments, accepting land for fees, and in the course of a long life acquired a large amount of landed property in this country, besides holding stock in a number of corporations. His children were left wealthy. The residence of Judge Young was on Main Street, opposite the present Methodist church building. It was a plain, unpretentious structure, weather-boarded and painted white. He dispensed a liberal hospitality; as a host was fond of entertaining company, and was especially partial to the society of learned men and travelers. His character and disposition were of the most amiable kind. His kindness to the poor and destitute was proverbial. During a time of great scarcity he sent a wagon-load of flour to the poor in one of the counties in which he presided as judge. He never permitted a poor man to lease his house without giving him something. He silenced all suggestions that he might possibly be giving to unworthy objects by fearing lest some one who was really needy might be turned away unaided. In short, so benevolent and kind-hearted was the judge to all who came within his sphere that all who knew him loved him, and so marked was he by integrity, truth, and uprightness that all respected him, despite of what many re- garded as the eccentricities of his character and the errors of his religion. So, in closing an obituary notice of him in a Greensburg newspaper a neighbor of his said, " The affluence with which providence blessed the labors of Judge Young enabled him to gratify those kindly feelings for the wants of others which it was well known formed a prominent trait in his character. No one ever went from his door who sought charity without having reason to invoke the blessings of heaven upon the kindness of his heart. No juror ever sat in judgment upon a culprit without being reminded by the judge that it was better to let ninety-nine guilty ones go unpunished than that one innocent person should suffer. He was as remarkable for his politeness and courtesy as he was distinguished for the extent of his literary acquirements. Profound as a jurist, courteous as a citizen, affectionate as a 306 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. father, upright as a judge, he discharged all those duties to his kindred, his country, and society, which will make him long remembered as a Christian, a philanthropist, and a patriot." For the last few months that immediately preceded the close of his life on earth, he gave evident tokens that these qualities of his heart and life had eminently fitted him to die the death of the Christian. Judge Young was at one time the owner of several slaves, but freed them before the time required by law. With their liberty he gave them also enough of money to start them in the world. Judge H. M. Brackenridge, in his " Recollections," in recalling the days when he opened an office in Somerset, says that he spent a week in Greensburg at Judge Young's. " Here I enjoyed the society of the judge, and of my friend, Walter Forward, and the kind attentions of the best of women, Mrs. Young." The sweet little villa, " Skara Glen," as the country residence of the judge was called, became the subject of one of the elder Brackenridge's poetic effusions. " Skara Glen" is now in the possession of his grandson, Frank Y. Clopper, Esq. Judge Young was about six feet in height, of delicate mould, and of a dignified bearing, stooping slightly in his walk, occasioned by his contemplative habits. He usually dressed in plain black, with the conventional swallow-tailed coat and ruffled shirt worn by the English gentry of his time. He retained the fashion of wearing his hair in a cue. His face was well formed, the nose long and straight, his color " the pale cast of thought," and his expression always grave and thoughtful. His forehead was high and smooth, and his manner cool and impressive. Although he would sometimes unbend to smile, yet he was seldom known to laugh outright. In company he was very quiet—was a good listener rather than a fluent talker. There are persons still living who saw the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, and of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, of that day, with Roger B. Taney as the chief of the one, and John Bannister Gibson as the chief of the other, and they all invariably bear testimony to the fact that no one of them inspired more respect, by personal appearance or deportment, than the Hon: John Young. An excellent portrait of him was painted by the celebrated artist Gilbert Stuart, the painter of the famous portrait of Washington known as the Stuart picture. This portrait of Judge Young corroborates all that has been said of his personal appearance. It is now the property of his grandson, Frank Y. Clopper, Esq., who has also one of his grandmother's, the wife of Judge Young, also painted by Stuart. They are both fine examples of Stuart's best work, and are with justice highly prized by their fortunate possessor.' I Judge Young retired from the bench at the end of November term, 1$36. On that occasion he delivered a valedictory address to the grand jury. Alexander Johnston, Esq., was the foreman of the jury, and at JUDGE THOMAS WHITE. Immediately upon the resignation of Judge Young, Thomas White, Esq., of Indiana County, was commissioned president judge of the Tenth Judicial District, composed of the counties of Westmoreland, his request the valedictory was furnished to the public. It has never till now appeared in any book. It is fair sample of the judge's style, and we insert it in behalf of those who still venerate his memory. Mr. Johnston replied in the following remarks: "The grand jury have unanimously called upon me, as their foreman, to express their high estimation of your services, impartiality, and integrity, and to say that you have their warm wishes, that peace and happiness may attend your retirement from public life, and also that a copy of your excellent valedictory address be furnished for publication. "For myself, who have been long acquainted with you in private life, and intimately connected with the court in several ministerial capacities, I cordially unite with my fellow grand jurors in their feelings and wishes, and heartily join in their solicitation. "To the Hon. Joust YOUNG, president of the Tenth Judicial District: "The grand jury, whom you have made the medium of addressing your fellow-citizens of Westmoreland County for the last time, among whom you have been long respected and beloved, and over whom you have presided in your official capacity for more than thirty years with impartiality and dignity, respectfully request a copy of your excellent address for publication. "A. JOHNSTON, Foreman. " GREENSBORO, Nov. 23, 1836." ADDRESS. " GENTLEMEN "Before I conclude, permit me to take this opportunity of announcing my intention to retire from public life on the rising of the present court. During thirty years as president of the Tenth Judicial District of Pennsylvania, which for about the half of that period comprehended Somerset, together with the four counties of Westmoreland, Armstrong, Indiana, and Cambria, it has been my study to discharge the duties of my office according to the best of my judgment without respect of either persons or parties. Neither ambition nor emolument could have induced me to accept of it. No efforts were used on my part to attain one attended with so much labor as well as responsibility as it was and has been. It was committed to me by the then Governor (McKean), whose character for independence of mind and high legal talents is justly entitled to respectful commemoration. " That in various instances I have erred I am well aware. Such is the frailty of human nature, and of all civil institutions and laws, opening a wide field for construction, with the uncertainty and occasionally the confliction of evidence, every human tribunal cannot but be more or lees fallible. From the very scope of the duties incumbent on me to afford satisfaction to every person was impracticable. Nor have I ever attempted to please any, or to court what is usually called popularity, which in the administration of justice would have been contrary to Sacred Writ, as well as sound reason. By this course I have lost nothing in the good opinion of the intelligent and impartial portion of the public, although it may have occasionally excited umbrage. Protected, as I gratefully acknowledge to have been, by the Divine Providence, the ebullitions of calumny (to which all holding public trusts are liable) have done me no real harm. I cheerfully take this occasion to declare that I cherish the Christian duty of forgiving all that may have intended any. I shall always remember the general favor of my fellow citizens for little short of half a century since my abode among them. My best wishes for their individual welfare and that of the community at large shall never be wanting. " Let us, gentlemen, ever bear in mind that we must sooner or later be accountable for the due exercise of all our faculties. Liberty has been bestowed for beneficial ends. When abused it becomes a mere cloak to licentiousness, and is generally accompanied by the contempt of piety and virtue. This abuse leads to anarchy, the worst species of tyranny, followed by the overthrow of all genuine liberty. It ought, therefore, to be under the guidance of sound reason, and regulated by Divine Revelation, the fountains of all wisdom and intelligence,` the light and the life of men.' " I conclude with the beet wishes fur all my fellow-creatures, Independent of external distinctions. We are all the children of one common Father, who causes the sun of His love and the rays of His wisdom to shine upon all." THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 307 Indiana, Armstrong, and Cambria. His commission was dated the 13th of December, 1836. On February the 20th, 1837, his commission was read in the Greensburg courts, when he took his seat on the bench here. He presided in these courts until the beginning of 1847, when J. M. Burrell, Esq., was appointed and commissioned his successor. Thomas White studied law in the office of the celebrated jurisconsult, William Rawle, in Philadelphia, and in 1821 commenced the practice of law at Indiana. He was then aged about twenty-one years. He soon obtained a good practice. He was also agent of George Clymer, who owned a large quantity of land in Indiana County, and particularly about the town of Indiana. He presided over the courts of this judicial district from 1836 to 1846. Early in the Rebellion he served as one of, the commissioners in what was called the "Peace Convention," which met at Washington. He was of medium height ; in manner polite and affable, but dignified. He took a great interest in agriculture, and was one of the projectors and supporters of the Indiana Agricultural Society, one of the most successful associations of the kind in the State. He died on the 23d of July, 1866, aged sixty-seven. JUDGE BURRELL AND JUDGE KNOX. On the 27th of February, 1847, Judge White's term as judge of the Tenth Judicial District expired, and on that day Governor Shunk nominated Jeremiah M. Burrell, an attorney of the Greensburg bar, to the Senate for the vacancy. The Senate not confirming the nomination, the Governor then sent in the names of Mr. Gilmore and Mr. McCandles, but the Whig Senate refused to confirm any other than Judge White, the late incumbent. The Governor, however, would send no other names in ; went beyond any precedent existing in the history of the State growing out of a disagreement of the two co-ordinate powers to fill such a vacancy, and early in 1847 commissioned Mr. Burrell. The question whether the Governor had power to fill the vacancy, and which arose upon the contemplation of the Governor to commission Mr. Burrell, was amply discussed. There had been only two legal expositions of parallel cases under the Constitution of the United States, which in the clause prescribing the method of supplying certain vacancies was identical with the Constitution of Pennsylvania. These expositions and opinions had been given by Mr. Wirt and by Mr. Taney, attorneys-general of the United States. These legal views were all the legal precedents, although there had been at least three, actual precedents set by Presidents identical with this case. Upon the opinion based upon the authorities cited, the Governor unhesitatingly filled the commission. The record of the Common Pleas Court has this minute : " Monday morning, 24th May, A.D. 1847. Jeremiah M. Burrell, Esq., appeared on the bench and presented his commission from the Governor of Pennsylvania, dated 27th March, 1847, appointing him president judge of the Tenth Judicial District of Pennsylvania, composed of the counties of Cambria, Indiana, Armstrong, and Westmoreland, which being read, the courts were opened at eleven o'clock ; Hons. John Moorhead and James Bell, associate judges, being also on the bench." Jeremiah Murry Burrell was born near Murrysville, in Westmoreland County. His father was a Dr. Burrell, a native of Dauphin County, Pa., and his mother was a daughter of Gen. Murry, one of the founders of Murrysville. He was an only son. His parents were wealthy, and he received a liberal education. He was prepared for college by a learned Scotchman, Thomas Will, at the Greensburg Academy, and finished his education at Jefferson College, Cannons-burg, Pa. He studied law with the Hon. Richard Coulter, afterwards one of the Supreme judges of the State, and opened a law-office in Greensburg after his admission to the bar on the 14th of July, 1835. Some time about 1839 he bought the Pennsylvania Argun, and became its editor. He was an active politician, and he secured the paper for political purposes. He made the paper even more Democratic than it had been. In the hot political campaign of 1840 he established his name as a writer of high ability, and made a State reputation for the paper. Some of his articles on political topics were copied in other papers all over the Union. Horace Greeley in the Log Cabin, on the side of the opposition, took issue with some of the articles, and gave them still wider circulation by replying to them in the fulminating style which later made him one of the most celebrated political journalists of the age. In the campaign of 1844 he was one of the most efficient speakers and writers in the State in behalf of Col. Polk, his political friends pitting him against such men as Thomas Williams, who was afterwards selected by Congress to deliver the eulogium upon Abraham Lincoln. He was subsequently elected to the State Assembly. Here he soon distinguished himself, and there was a heated rivalry between him and Thomas Burnside, Jr., a son of Judge Burnside of the Supreme Court, and a son-in-law of Simon Cameron, then a Democrat, for the position of leader of the Democratic party in the House. In this competition Burrell was victorious, and it is admitted by both friends and political opponents that he was the ablest partisan and the most eminent orator in the Pennsylvania Legislature. At that time in Pennsylvania the nominations for the judiciary were made by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, and a vacancy occurring in Burrell's district, the Governor sent in his name to the Senate for president judge. After .a contest he was, as we have before said, rejected in that body through political motives and probably through some personal dislikes. It was deemed expedient -to vacate this appointment, which being dome, John C. Knox, 308 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.   of Tioga, was appointed, confirmed by the Senate, and commissioned in his stead. Judge John C. Knox presided for the first time in the Westmoreland courts at May term, 1848. The minutes contain the following entry : " At 11 o'clock A.M., 22d May, 1848, the Court met. John C. Knox, of Tioga County, appeared in court, and was conducted to the Bench by Judge Burrell, when the commission of the said John C. Knox from the Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsyl., appointing him President Judge of the Tenth Judicial District of Penna., composed of the counties of Westmoreland, Cambria, Indiana, and Armstrong, dated the 11th day of April, 1848, was read." When the courts opened Judge Burrell then practiced before Judge Knox. In 1850 the constitution of the State was amended so as to place the election of the judges in the hands of the people. Judge Burrell was nominated by his party and easily elected. Then for November the 17th, 1851, is this minute: " Immediately after adjournment the Members of the Bar met in the Court-House, for the purpose of giving J. C. Knox a complimentary dinner. H. D. Foster, Esq., was called to the chair, and H. Byers Kuhns was appointed secretary. On motion, J. M. Burrell, W. A. Stokes, and Alexander McKinney appointed a committee to select the place and make all necessary arrangements." In the year 1851, Judge Knox was elected judge for the counties of Venango, Clarion, Jefferson, and Forrest.1 In 1853 he was appointed to the Supreme 1"Monday, Nov. 17, 1851. "To THE HON. J. C. KNOX : "SIR,—The members of the Bar of Westmoreland County, desirous to express on your retirement from the Bench of this District their feelings of warm attachment for the courtesy which you have uniformly shown them, their admiration of your ability, their appreciation of your professional learning, their confidence in your integrity, and their high sense of those private virtues and legal accomplishments which have given them, during your Presidency in this District, a delightful friend, and have secured to the people au administration of Justice speedy, certain, and impartial. " We desire you ever to rely on our kindly sentiments. Among us you will always be welcomed as an old and sacred friend; absent from us we shall regard with deep interest your future course, and hope that it will be prosperous and happy. "To testify to those feelings, we respectfully request your acceptance of a Public Dinner at such time as may suit your convenience. "With much respect, your friends, " H. D. Foster. Jos. H. Kuhns. J. M. Burrell. Edgar Cowan. Will. A. Stokes. W. H. Markle. Jno. Armstrong, Jr. H. P. Laird. Jas. C. Clarke John Armstrong. H. Byers Kuhns. Jac. Turney. H. C. Marchand. R. Coulter. Jas. M. Carpenter. Wm. A. Cook. J. F. Woods. Alex. M'Kinney. S. B. M'Cormick. T. J. Barclay. Aug. Drum. Wm. J. Williams." G. W. Clark. " TUESDAY, Nov. 18, 1851. "TO THE MEMBERS OF THE BAR OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY: "GENTLEMEN,—Your kind note of invitation to a public dinner has just been presented to me, and a perusal of its contents has afforded me the most lively satisfaction. "It is to me a source of great pleasure to learn that you approve of the manner in which I have performed the duties of my office during the time that I have presided in your county. And I assure you, gentle- Bench to the vacancy caused by the death of Pennsylvania's most eminent jurist, Hon. John Bannister Gibson. He resigned from this position to become attorney-general under Governor Pollock, and in 1861 he went to Philadelphia to practice law with David Webster. He soon after became afflicted with softening of the brain ; and was sent to the asylum, and is now (1882) an insane inmate of the State Insane Asylum at Norristown. On the morning of Feb. 16, 1852, the new commissions of J. M. Burrell, president judge, and of James Bell and David Cook, associate judges, being read, court opened. Judge Burrell acted as judge in this district until 1855, when he was appointed judge of the District Court of the United States for Kansas, then one of the Territories. Judge Burrell's wife was Miss Anna Richardson, a woman of great beauty in her youth, of liberal accomplishments, and of handsome fortune. He left a family of a widow and several children. In religion his family were Old-School Presbyterian. He was a man of taste and refinement, and what he did he did well. He built a fine house at Greensburg for a residence, and its excellent location, tasteful grounds, and convenient appurtenances are duly appreciated by its present owner and occupant. He had a well-selected library, and played with singular skill upon the violin. He had splendid social qualities, but a delicate constitution. From the first as a judge he created a favorable impression in every court in which he presided, and gave general satisfaction. Judge Kimmell, of Somerset, and Judge Agnew, afterwards Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, presided in these courts at sundry times in the adjudication of causes in which Judge Burrell was disqualified during his tenure of office. JOSEPH BUFFINGTON, for many years president judge of the district of which Westmoreland County was a part (the " old Tenth"), was born in the town of West Chester, Chester Co., Pa., on the 27th day of November, 1803, and died at Kittanning on the 3d day of February, 1872. The ancestors of Judge Buffington were Friends or Quakers, who left the county of Middlesex, England, and men, that, so far as the intention is concerned, you do me no more than justice. As to acts, I am conscious that your partiality has induced you to bestow commendations by no means deserved. " To you, as members of the Bar, I am under obligations that I can only repay by keeping them in constant remembrance. Coming amongst you a stranger, I was received as a familiar friend, and in our intercourse, professional and personal, I have been treated in the kindest manner. I am proud of your good opinion, and hope ever to retain it, and although our official relation is about to be severed, my earnest wish is that the tie that connects us as men and members of the same noble profession may never be weakened or destroyed. " I cannot forego the pleasure of meeting you at the festive board, and therefore accept your invitation, and name Friday evening of this week as the most convenient time. " With sentiments of high regard, " I remain, gentlemen, truly your friend, "JOHN C. KNOX," THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 309 came to the Province of Pennsylvania shortly before the proprietary, and settled near Chadd's Ford, in Chester County, near the site of the battle of the Brandywine, where his grandfather, Jonathan Buffington, had a grist-mill during the Revolution. His father, Ephraim Buffington, kept a hotel at West Chester, at a tavern stand known as " The White Hall," a venerable hostelry, and celebrated through that region for many years. It was here that the subject of this sketch was born and lived until his tenth year, when his father, in hopes of bettering his fortunes in the West, left West Chester, came over the mountains, and settled. at Pine Creek, about five miles above Pittsburgh, on the Allegheny River. It was during this journey that the travelers passed through Greensburg, and it was at the old Rohrer House (afterwards the McQuaide House, and for many years his favorite stopping-place), that Judge Buffington first saw a soft-coal fire. When about eighteen years of. age he entered the Western University at Pittsburgh, then under the charge of Dr. Bruce, at which place he also enjoyed the instructions of the venerable Dr. Joseph Stockton. After pursuing a liberal course of studies he went to Butler, Pa., and for some time prior to studying law he edited a weekly paper, called the Butler Repository, and in company with Samuel A. Purviance, afterwards a well-known attorney of Allegheny County and attorney-general of the Commonwealth, he engaged in keeping a small grocery-store. Soon afterwards he entered as student-at-law the office of Gen. William Ayres, at that time one of the most celebrated lawyers in Western Pennsylvania, under whose careful training he laid a thorough foundation for his chosen life-work. During his student life he married Miss Catharine Mechling, a daughter of Hon. Jacob Mechling, a prominent politician of that region, and for many years a member of the House of Representatives and Senate of Pennsylvania. Mr. Mechling was originally a native of Westmoreland County, and was married to Miss Drum, an aunt of Hon. Augustus Drum, M.C. from Westmoreland, of Gen. Richard Drum, U.S.A., and of Maj. Simon Drum, who was killed in the Mexican war. In the month of July, 1826, he was admitted to practice in Butler County, and in the Supreme Court on Sept. 10, 1828. He remained at the Butler bar for about a year, but finding at length that the business was largely absorbed by the older and more experienced practitioners, he determined to seek some new field of labor, and finally settled upon Armstrong County, to which place he removed and settled at Kittanning, where he resided continuously until his death. Here his industry, integrity, and close application soon brought him to the front of the bar, and although the first years of his professional life were ones of hardship and narrow means, yet in a few years he was in possession of a practice that absorbed all his time and afforded a good income. From coming to manhood Judge Buffington took a strong interest in politics. At the inception of the anti-Masonic party in 1831, or thereabouts, he became one of its members, and served as one of the delegates to the National Convention of that body which met at Baltimore in 1832 and nominated William Wirt for the Presidency. During those years he was several times nominated for the position of State senator or member of the House of Representatives, but without success, his party being largely in the minority. In 1840 he joined the Whig party, taking an active part in the election of Gen. Harrison, and serving as one of the Presidential electors on the Whig ticket. During the years that intervened from his coming to Kittanning until 1843, Judge Buffington was closely engaged in the line of his profession. Patient, laborious, and attentive, full of zeal and energy for his clients' causes, he had acquired an extensive practice. He was constantly in attendance upon the courts of Clarion, Jefferson, Armstrong, and Indiana, and his services were often in demand in other counties. He was connected in all the important land trials of that region, and his knowledge of this intricate branch of the law was thorough and exhaustive. Said one of 'his life-long friends, " To speak of Judge Buffington's career as a lawyer would be a history of the judicial contests in this section of the State for more than a quarter of a century. He had a large practice in Armstrong, Jefferson, Clarion, and Indiana Counties, the courts of which counties he regularly attended. It was my pleasure to be with him, either as assisting or opposing counsel, in many of these counties. It may not be forgotten that in those early times in the judicial history of middle Western Pennsylvania the bar constituted a kind of peripatetic association, all and each contributing his share to the social enjoyments of the occasion, and to the instruction of the unlearned in law, of the obligations which were imposed upon them. These unions at different places created necessarily many happy reminiscences. But, like the schoolmaster of the village, the very spot where once they triumphed is forgot.' " It cannot be forgotten or denied that Judge Buffington was a conscientious, fair-dealing, and upright lawyer. He had imbibed so largely of the privileges and excellencies of the profession, knew so much of it and the rightful manner of pursuing it, that to him chicanery was fraud ; technicality, folly ; and injustice a crime." In the fall of 1843, Judge Buffington was elected a member of Congress as the Whig candidate in the district composed of the counties of Armstrong, Butler, Clearfield, and Indiana, his competitor being Dr. Lorain, of Clearfield County. In 1844 he was re-elected, his competitor being Mr. McKennan, of Indiana County. During his service in the House he acted with the Whigs in all important measures, among others voting against the admission of Texas on the ground of opposition to the extension of slave territory. 310 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. His fellow-townsman and warm personal friend, Hon. W. F. Johnston, having been elected Governor, he appointed Judge Buffington, in 1849, to the position of president judge of the Eighteenth Judicial District, composed of the counties of Clarion, Elk, Jefferson, and Venango. This position he held until 1851, when he was defeated in the judicial election by Hon. John• C. Knox, the district being largely Democratic. In 1852 he was nominated by the Whig State Convention for the judgeship of the Supreme Court. In the general overthrow of the Whig party that resulted in the defeat of Gen. Scott for the Presidency that year, Judge Buffington was defeated, his competitor being the late Chief Justice Woodward, of Luzerne County. The same year he was appointed by President Fillmore chief justice of Utah Territory, then just organized. He was strongly urged by the President personally to accept, as the position was a trying one, and the administration wished it to be filled by some one in whom it had confidence. Its great distance from civilization and the customs of the country, which were so abhorrent to his ideas, led him, however, to decline the proffered honor. On the resignation of Hon. J. Murry Burrell, judge of the Tenth District, he was appointed to that position, in the fall of 1855, by Governor Pollock, with whom he had been a fellow-member of Congress, and with his appointment commenced a close and intimate acquaintance with Westmoreland County and its citizens that lasted until his death. In the fall of 1856 he was elected to fill the position to which he had been appointed for a term of ten years. In this election he had no contestant, the opposition declining to nominate through the advice of their then candidate for the Presidency, James Buchanan, a special friend of the judge's for many years. This position he held until 1866, when he was again elected to fill the judgeship for another term of ten years. This he resigned in 1871, when failing health admonished him that the judicial labors, already beyond the power of any man, were too great for one who had passed the meridian of life and had borne the heat and burden of the day, whilst others more vigorous had fallen by his side. It was hard, indeed, for one whose mind was skilled to greatness and trained to labor to listen• to the demands of a feeble frame whilst yet that mind was in the vigor and strength of maturity. But, sustained by the consciousness of duty well done, and cheered by the united voice from without proclaiming his life's mission to the public nobly performed, he left the battlefield of life and lived (as was his wont) amid the brighter joys of social and domestic love, himself the centre around which the affections of a dear home clustered. He was again in private life after forty-six years' connection with the bench and bar of the Commonwealth, to the thoroughness and industry of which the State Reports for the forty years preceding bear silent but eloquent witness. Surrounded by friends and every comfort of life, the following year passed quickly, but, as in the case of many an overworked professional man, the final summons came without warning. On Saturday, Feb. 3, 1872, he was in his usual health, and on rising from dinner went to an adjoining room, across which he commenced walking as was his wont. His wife coming in five minutes afterwards found him lying on the sofa in the sleep that knows no waking. He was buried with the services of the Episcopal Church, of which he had been an attendant, officer, and liberal supporter for many years. Of Judge Buffington as a lawyer we have spoken ; as a citizen he was public-spirited, and as a neighbor he was kind and sympathetic; all his intercourse with his fellow-men was marked with a courtesy and quiet dignity that impressed one as being in the presence of one who was a gentleman in the true sense of the word. His memory is a rich legacy to friends who survive. JUDGE JAMES A. LOGAN. On Monday morning, May 8, 1871, accompanied by Judge M. P. McClannahan, one of the associate judges, and the only one in the county at that time, his colleague, Judge Robert Given, being in California, Judge Logan took his seat upon the bench, and directed the crier to open the courts. He then handed his commission from Governor Geary, appointing him president judge of the Tenth Judicial District, to the prothonotary to be read. The commission empowering him to hold the said office until the first Monday of the next December was then read. Judge Logan was a native of Westmoreland County, born in the limits of Burrell township. He received his education at Elder's Ridge Academy, a preparatory school in Indiana County, and studied law with William A. Stokes, Esq., and with the Hon. H. P. Laird, and on motion of W. H. Markle, Esq., was admitted to practice on the 16th of May, 1863. After his admission to the bar he entered into partnership with Mr. Markle, and remained with him until the senior member of the firm was appointed collector of United States revenue of this congressional district. He was shortly after his admission appointed solicitor of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and after the Southwest Railway was incorporated was selected to mail-age the legal affairs of that road, of which he was also a director. He applied himself with diligence to the study of the law, and soon evidenced legal talents of more than ordinary degree. He acquired a good practice, and was prominent as a rising politician in the Republican party, and was mentioned as a candidate for Congress a year or two prior to his appointment as judge. Judge Logan presiding with satisfaction in each of THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 311 the three counties of his district under this appointment, was nominated by the Republican party as its candidate for election, and was easily elected over Silas M. Clark, Esq., of Indiana, his competitor in the Democratic party, his party having a majority in the district. He presided after his election over all the courts of the district until Westmoreland was made a separate judicial district by the Constitution of 1874, when he was retained as judge of this county alone. Over the courts of this county he presided with eminent ability, firmness, and skill until he resigned, in 1879, to accept the position of Assistant General Solicitor of the Pennsylvania Railroad, a position in the legal department of that corporation which he was the first to occupy. JUDGE JAMES A. HUNTER. The Hon. James A. Hunter, the present incumbent of this distinguished office, upon the vacancy occurring by the resignation of Judge Logan, was commissioned as president judge of the Tenth Judicial District by Governor Hoyt, July 12, 1879, his commission running to the first Monday of January, 1880. On the 14th of July, 1879, Judge Hunter took his oath of office. In the election of the fall of 1879 to fill this vacancy Judge Hunter was elected by the people of Westmoreland their law judge for ten years. 1 JOHN BYERS ALEXANDER. At the beginning of the present century, Westmoreland, relatively speaking, was yet in the backwoods. At that time there were no turnpikes, not to say canals or railroads. Although the people were industrious and energetic, yet they were, as is always the case in like circumstances, in too rainy instances inclined to be quarrelsome and fond of litigation. The class which made up the great majority of the early inhabitants were proverbially fonder of the sight of a court-house than a church. Its county town was, therefore, taking all things together, a good location for a young lawyer of able body and practical mind—characteristics and acquirements which nearly all the eminent lawyers of that day possessed in a marked degree. Among these first lawyers was John B. Alexander. John Byers Alexander was born in Carlisle, Cumberland Co., Pa., and emigrated to Greensburg early in the present century. He was admitted to the Westmoreland bar on motion of William Wilkins, Esq., at the December term of court, 1804. He opened his first office here, engaged in the practice of the law, and resided here until the war of Eighteen-Twelve commenced. Mr. Alexander had been liberally educated, having been graduated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, when that institution had a first-class reputation. He was a good Latin scholar, readily reading and explaining old law writers to the court. In his 1 See biographical sketch of Judge Hunter. old age he was heard to quote Horace in the original in ordinary conversation with gentlemen of culture. But Coke says that the law is a jealous mistress, and requires an undivided attention. Alexander was of the same opinion, and had little regard for any literary pursuit outside of his profession. He was no politician, and read no newspapers, novels, magazines, or histories. His sole literary recreation was the reading of Shakspeare. This he knew so well that he quoted it regularly in court, and could repeat whole scenes without any mistake, and with proper manner and pronunciation. And to him, in his profession, the great dramatist was undoubtedly of great use, and particularly in this, that it supplemented him with a fund of quotations with which in addressing juries he could relieve the dryness and dullness of professional language. His father having a large family to support, he, after having received his collegiate education, was thrown upon his own resources. He studied much, worked hardly and carefully, and as a return rose to the front rank at the bar, and gained the best practice in the county. Only on two occasions did he allow his mind to be drawn away or diverted from the practice of his profession, in which he was making money and gaining reputation. The first of these occasions was the war of Eighteen-Twelve. When that war with Great Britain commenced he collected a company of volunteers, and served with credit under Gen. Harrison in several engagements with the British and Indians. The name of his company was "The Greensburg Rifles," and an account of its services in that campaign will be found in the chapter of this book in which the subject of that war is treated of. After his return he resumed the practice of the law, rose to the head of the Greensburg bar, and obtained a lucrative practice in this and the adjoining counties. But notwithstanding his peaceful profession, Alexander still retained a taste for military display. His town of Carlisle had been the site of a British barracks and a military rendezvous, and hence there had grown up among the inhabitants an admiration of a soldier's character and a fondness for a soldier's life. But in the case of Alexander, he was born with the instincts of the soldier, and members of his family had raised the name to distinction in the military annals of the Revolutionary era on the side of the colonies. The title for which he felt a fondness and expressed a preference was the familiar one of "Major," by which he was known all over the State, and which he justly and honorably had earned in the field. Moved by this military taste, Alexander raised a company of artillery for " parade duty,", when “No war or battle's sound Was heard the world around; The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood,' Unstain'd with human blood ; The trumpet spoke not to the armed throng." 312 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. The company was the model company of the military division in which the militia of the State was divided, and was truly a fine one in appearance. The men were handsomely uniformed, were all over six feet in height, and their two handsome brass cannons' were drawn by large gray horses. The rank and file consisted of substantial farmers and stout mechanics and laborers. In rich and gaudy uniform, Alexander always commanded in person, and he expended a large sum of money in equipments, horses, and donations. He, with his company, turned out in honor of Lafayette when he passed through the southwestern part of our county, and he commanded this company in person at the execution of Joseph Evans. Alexander not only encouraged the profession of arms by his example, but he went so far as to acknowledge the code of honor in theory and practice. He fought a duel with a Mr. Mason, of Uniontown, Fayette Co. They exchanged shots, but neither was wounded. Both desired a second fire, but the seconds refused on the ground that the point of honor for which they fought did not require another interchange of deadly missives, and neither had the satisfaction of putting a bullet-hole into the body of his antagonist. This fondness for military parade and display thus became rather a weakness with Alexander. As he grew older he became vain of military titles and reputation, and Ryas easily cajoled and flattered on this point. His military reputation, however, rested on a more substantial foundation. Of his popularity, based upon his military exploits, is related a curious incident. Some time about 1838, when Sanford, who introduced upon the stage the "Jim Crow" minstrelsy, intended to dance and sing, Alexander was in Pittsburgh, attending the Supreme Court. He went to the theatre, and on his appearance in the boxes it was suggested to Sanford to make him a compliment. Jim Crow improvised the following : "Ole Gen'ral Harrison, He was the big commander, And the next big hero there Was Major Alexander! "So wheel about," etc. This drew attention to the box of Alexander, and was received with uproarious applause. The old Major was highly gratified. But on his return from the war he quietly returned to his profession, not using his military reputation as a stepping-stone to popular favor. His military services were such as to have made him a distinguished citizen of the county had they not been very largely lost sight of in his more brilliant reputation as an eminent lawyer. In this character shall we chiefly regard him in this sketch. The second and less fortunate occasion which drew off his attention from the agreeable toil of the office and the bar was his election to the State Assembly. Prior to that, and until the advent of Gen. Jackson into the political arena, he had taken no part in politics. At that time he avowed himself a strong Jackson man. The individuality and the upright and simple character of that remarkable leader drew to his support many of contrary political opinions and preferences. On the first evidences of the popularity of that military citizen he was claimed by both parties which were then in antagonism, and probably the Federalists, or Whigs, had more right to class him with those in their faith than had the Democrat-Republicans. But Alexander, although a Federalist of Federalists, was among the first of Jackson's supporters in Westmoreland, and remained the friend of his administration, without the hope of preferment or of party patronage. In 1834 one of the representatives of Westmoreland in the General Assembly, James Findlay, having been appointed Secretary of the Commonwealth by Governor Wolf, a vacancy was made in the representation, which was filled at a special election by returning Maj. Alexander. The professions of the law and of arms have from times of high antiquity been regarded as inimical professions. Inter arma silent leges. But Alexander was attached to both of them. It may be said of him too, as it was said of another, that law was his business and arms was his recreation, in relative degrees. For politics, however, he had no predilection. It is seldom that eminent lawyers are successful as politicians or as legislators, and especially when they enter public life advanced in years. The political and legislative careers of such eminent jurists as William L. Meredith and James M. Porter, of Rufus Choate and Horace Binney, were in nowise successful, and certainly added nothing to their reputation as lawyers. Alexander was unanimously elected to fill the vacancy, and thereupon went to Harrisburg. It was admitted by all that .his representative career was a failure. He was like a fish out of water. He there came in contact with men who, although they could scarcely have spelled their way through the hornbook, could have bought him and sold him in legislative trickery every hour in the day. For those he had the utmost contempt, and he appeared to regard the whole legislative body somewhat as Gulliver regarded a similar assemblage in Lilliput. Before the session closed he left them in disgust, mounted old " Somerset," and rode home. Thenceforth he took no part in politics whatever until 1840, when his old commander was nominated for the Presidency. During that campaign he consented to preside at a Harrison meeting at Greensburg. He was then on the verge of eternity, and died shortly after, in the same year. The position of Mr. Alexander at the 'Westmoreland bar for a period of about twenty years is generally admitted to have been ' at its head. There were THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 313 then at the bar other lawyers who rose to eminence after his day, and at his day there were gentlemen who were justly regarded as able lawyers, but these were mostly younger and less experienced. Rich-ard Coulter, a younger man, was his superior in eloquence, Alexander Foster in extensive reading and discursive knowledge, and several others in gen-eral accomplishments, but when he was in the full vigor of his intellectual manhood, as a learned lawyer he had no superior. But in the end his inclination and ability for work decreasing with lost vigor, his former position was secured by others. Probably the great secret of the success of Alexander as a lawyer was his sedulous and exclusive de-votion to the profession of his choice. More than one of the text-writers and expositors of the English jurisprudence have, in giving their experience and advice, laid stress on the observation that to succeed at the law all thought of advancement elsewhere Must be abandoned. Bacon, who undoubtedly was vain of his intellectual powers, admitted the superiority of Coke, his one-time rival for the enviable distinction of being the oracle of that code which, taking shape in the Institutes soon after came to be regarded as a not unworthy rival of the imperial jurisprudence, the code of the civil law of the Latin civilization ; and this superiority which Bacon admitted in Coke he attributed not to superior intellect or attainments, but to a closer and more exclusive study of the groundwork and superstructure of the English common and statute law. It is said by Chitty, the elder, that the law as a jealous mistress submits to no division of affection. It was a well-known apothegm, traceable to the earliest of the law-writers of England, and which Blackstone regards with the veneration due to a saying so old, and which he has made part of the text of the Commentaries, that to make a good lawyer, a lawyer sufficient to judge the laws, requires the ceaseless lucubrations of twenty years ; and all his disciples know that before the master entered upon that course of study which qualified him to expound the laws of his country, and to lay out the plan of a new academical science, he bade adieu to polite literature in elegant and expres-sive verse, entitled " The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse," and which began " Shakspeare no more." In one particular the writer of the Commentaries seems in his actual literary experience to have been at issue with his own advice, for notwithstanding this adieu, and although he did devote himself to the mastery of the law, yet Blackstone really never did aban-don his Shakspeare, but was in his lifetime regarded one of the best Shaksperian scholars in England, and found time to annotate, correct the text, and offer valuable sugestions for an edition of the dramatist's works, edited by a friend towards the end of his life. But he read Shakspeare as a lawyer would read it. This advice Alexander followed in all parts. Shakspeare he did not and could not forego,—it was his vade-mecum. In Blackstone he saw the perfection of human reason, in Shakspeare the perfection of human wisdom. From the one he obtained his knowledge of law, and from the other his knowledge of human nature. In his speeches before the jury he constantly drew from the serious portions, the proverbial expressions, and the didactic moral passages of his author ; and in his peculiar humor, when away from professional restriction, he acted, with appropriate " 'Fore-God-well-said-my-lord-, and-with-a-proper-accent-and-manner," the comic scenes. The high reputation of Alexander as a lawyer was well deserved. His mind was a legal one, clear, logical, and practical, and from early life he had been a close and severe student. Once, when complimented upon his legal knowledge as if coming by nature, he replied, " I owe my legal knowledge, whatever may be its extent, to hard study. I rose and studied when others were in their beds." This habit of study he retained until old age. It was said that he read Blackstone every year, and at all favorable opportunities refreshed his memory with the other standard law authorities. In short, he read nothing but law-books and Shakspeare. As a sound and well-read lawyer he had, as we said, no equal at the Westmoreland bar, and in the special branch of the law relating to land title he had no superior in Western Pennsylvania. He was retained as counsel in many cases of disputed title in the court of last resort in the State, and even in some cases of a like character which were adjudicated in the highest court of the United States. He was the counsel in one particularly heavy land-title case on an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, wherein his adversary was the celebrated William. Wirt. Alexander gained his cause, and the argument displayed such legal acumen that he astonished the bench as well as the bar. At its conclusion he was complimented by Mr. Wirt and by Daniel Webster, who was present, and who expressed in his warm-hearted way his approbation of the manner he had handled his case, of his exposition of the law, and the profundity of his legal reasoning and learning. It is said, furthermore, that Alexander recognized these marks of approbation by such an expression as left a questionable doubt as to his appreciation of them ; for, as he was reputed one of the best lawyers, so he was reputed one of the best cursers in the State. In the intricate and abstruse practice of the land law of Pennsylvania Alexander was, without doubt, the superior of Wirt. Wirt was a politician, an orator, and a literary man, but to the law alone had Alexander devoted an almost entire attention. If Wirt wen the Bacon, Alexander was the Coke. His contemporaries used to relate many instances of his success at the bar in the management of his cases, and many anecdotes illustrative of his peculiar characteristics. Some of these have come down to our own times. 314 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. A young lawyer of Armstrong County once secured the services of Alexander in an important land trial. Alexander took the case, made an examination of it, and prepared a memorandum and brief. He duly attended the Armstrong court when the case was set for trial ; but having met an old acquaintance there, who, like himself, was of a convivial disposition, the Major became so intent in " fighting his battles o'er again" that he did not care whether court kept or no. The Armstrong lawyer became uneasy, went to Alexander, whom he found in bed, told him that everything depended on his assistance, and that his client was anxious for the trial to proceed. Thereupon the Major asked for his saddle-bags, and opening them he took out a bundle of papers. " Take these papers," said he, with a hasty imprecation, "go into court, and if you cannot win the case upon them you are not much of a lawyer." The young lawyer did so ; he went into court, and entirely upon the precedents and authorities cited in the papers drawn up by Alexander obtained a verdict in favor of his client. When the term of court was over the young attorney called upon Alexander, who still remained in his room with his old military companion, and asked him what was his fee and what the services of both should be. " Why, you may charge as little as you please," he replied ; " but I'm not going to have all this trouble and toil for less than one hundred dollars." We have been told that the fees of Alexander were fair, moderate, and never exorbitant. He was no professional shark. Notwithstanding all the great land trials in which he was engaged, the largest fee he ever secured was one of a thousand dollars. He greatly distinguished himself in one of the most remarkable cases ever tried in the Westmoreland courts. A negro man named Tom Morgan had been charged with an attempt to commit a rape upon a girl who was weak in intellect if not actually imbecile. The outrage excited such indignation in Greensburg that a party of stout men armed themselves with cowhides and wattles, dragged the black man from his house, and so beat and whipped him that nothing saved his life but the sheriff and the posse, who took him out of the hands of the mob, lodged him in jail, and placed a guard round the jail building. Before yet the excitement had subsided the negro was indicted in the Oyer and Terminer Court. Eminent counsel, at private expense, was secured to assist the Commonwealth in the prosecution. Conway, one of the first lawyers of Cambria County, and Coulter, one of the first lawyers of Westmoreland, both of them eloquent advocates, were with the deputy attorney-general. When the case came on to be heard the negro was brought into court. A more pitiable appeal to a sensitive mind of our generation could not well be made than did this despised, friendless negro. But at that day a negro was regarded even in Pennsylvania as more a beast than a man. Popular prejudice was against him, and this popular prejudice was instigated and then influenced by all arts and all arguments. The character of the prosecutor was lost sight of in the wide-spread opinion of the guilt of the prisoner. Mr. Alexander was designated by the court to take the cause of the defense. Among the first questions raised was the question of the competency of the prosecutor to testify. The question was one of the greatest importance in the trial of the cause, as her testimony was necessary for a conviction. To gain this position and allow the testimony both Conway and Coulter spoke, and doing so they addressed much of their discourse to the jury and to the audience, although towards the judge.. They argued the point with ability and eloquence. A latitude was given the argument unknown in ordinary trials, for it was more than an ordinary trial. The court-house was filled with people, and the audience was in sympathy with the orators. Coulter acquitted himself with more than ordinary satisfaction. He displayed the highest gifts of the orator. In his peroration he addressed himself to the subject of his eloquent labor, and drew all eyes and all hearts to the girl as she sat there within the bar. She alone was unmoved, and there was something in her half-idiotic look which with the words and manner of the counsel drew all hearts to her in pity, so that the cause of the girl was made the cause of the people. The advocate had, from the pathetic and tragic rendition of his story, the bench, the jury, the audience, many of the bar, and even the prisoner in tears, and it was evident that if the point had been at the ruling of those who heard him their sympathy would have carried all before it. Mr. Alexander then rose to take exception at the court ruling for the admission of the testimony of the prosecutor in the case under reason of the law. He said that he had never, as counsel, been spoken to by the negro; that he cared nothing for him, whether he was white or black ; nor did he wish to extenuate his guilt if he were guilty; but that he desired to see the law vindicated. He then examined the condition of the girl. Where the counsel for the prosecution had raised pity he raised doubt; and where the one had appealed to sympathy the other appealed to reason. Those who listened .soon began to perceive from the evidences of their own senses that the poor girl was but a demented creature, whose ideas of discriminating right and wrong were vague, and whose notions of female chastity were still vaguer ; and so the accused and the accuser stood on the same ground. But tile counsel for the prisoner did not stop at this. He lost sight of his client in the magnitude of the cause. He brought to his case his stored-up learning of the common law, he recalled old judicial decisions, quoted black-letter authority from the law-Latin and Norman-French text-books of the Middle Ages, marshaled together all the maxims of the common law bearing on the capacity and the incapacity of THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 315 witnesses to testify, drew the legal distinction of idiocy, lunacy, and dementia, and brought the court from the fountain sources of legal wisdom down through a long series of English decisions to a modern date, and examining into the law of evidence as it was recognized in Pennsylvania, he applied his argument to the case in hand ; and in the end ruled the court by quoting a recent decision of the president judge, where, in a similar case, the testimony of the main witness had been rejected. To the astonishment of the bystanders, who had expected that the prisoner would go to the penitentiary to serve out in solitary confinement the rest of his days, Tom Morgan walked out of the court-house a free man. As most everything connected with the life of such a distinguished man has some interest, we shall now have something to say on the family relations, the personal appearance, and the habits of Maj. Alexander. His ancestors were Scotch-Irish, and they had emigrated to this country before the Revolution. His father, Peter Alexander; was born in Cumberland County, Pa. The family were Whigs and patriots during the war of the Revolution. The wife of John B. was a Miss Smith, of Cumberland County, a sister of the wife of Dr. Postlethwaite. He had no children. Two of his sisters married in Westmoreland ; one was married to Joseph Kuhns, Esq., and the other to Eli Coulter, Esq., the father of Gen. Richard Coulter and Alexander Coulter, Esq., of Greensburg. His wife survived him, and on her death the property went to the collateral heirs. Besides two sisters he had two brothers, Samuel Alexander, who was a leading lawyer of the Carlisle, Cumberland County, bar, and Thomas Alexander, who once lived with his brother in Greensburg, and who was never married. In personal appearance he was a large, fat man. His height was about five feet ten inches, and his weight about the year 1834 must have been about two hundred and forty pounds. Of his personal appearance there is one thing which has been remarked by all those who remember him. He had a most remarkable head, and a description of it may not be uninteresting to the students of phrenology. It was unusually large, but not well rounded. It was elongated from the occiput to the sinciput, that is to say, it was inordinately long from the hind part of the skull to the forehead, and in this direction it was disproportionate to the height. It was large and prominent in front of the ears, extended far behind them, but was not developed in proportion above the ears. It seemed—from this description and judging scientifically—to be deficient in veneration and the moral sentiments. In the vigor of his life and manhood he had been well formed and muscular, but in his old age he had become very corpulent. His nose was large and straight, and his complexion between fair and florid. In his younger years he was undoubtedly a good-looking man, but the exposure of an active campaign, and careless and unwatched habits in eating and drinking had in time made his akin and features rough. Yet even in his old age when in good humor he had a pleasant and genial smile, and when he chose his manners were polished and genteel. In company with women no man could be more gentle and good-humored. His rudeness belonged in great part to the times and the society around him. Alexander rose the year round at the break of day, studied his cases, answered his letters, and did the heavy part of his business before breakfast. When his business did not absorb his attention he read in some law-book. After breakfast he visited the offices and taverns, and chatted with clients and acquaintances. Although he kept a sideboard with liquors for callers, he treated at the taverns. He was no churl, and was popular with inn-keepers and drinking men. Although he has had, among a certain class, a reputation for using blackguard expressions, yet he never descended to relate obscene stories or retail low gossip. In warm weather he slept in the afternoon, and had the habit of reading his favorite author in bed at night. In business transactions the integrity of Alexander was inflexible. He was never known to do a dishonest or dishonorable action. No man could say that he ever defrauded him of a dollar. His handsome fortune was all gained by honorable professional toil. In his marital relation he was a pattern. No lady in the days of chivalry was ever treated with more attention and courtesy than Mrs. Alexander. His character was really an elevated one, and it was only when the " times were out of joint" that he was, as he was commonly reported, rude, overbearing, or quarrelsome. He resided for years in a large brick house on Main Street, diagonal to the Methodist Church. This house with many alterations is now and has long been used for hotel purposes, and during the civil war obtained the name of the "Richmond House." His law-office was in the same building. Some time between 1830 and 1840 he removed to the township. Then both his residence and law-office were in a house half a mile southwest of the borough. Every business day he rode into town on a beautiful sorrel horse with a silvery mane and tail, called " Somerset." He employed and amused himself in agriculture and horticulture, and in the improvement of the breed of cattle and poultry. The culture of the fields became with him quite a hobby, and with all the modesty of his profession he always maintained that his apples, hogs, turkeys, and chickens were the best in Westmoreland. 1  1 ACTION OF THE COURT ON THE DEATH OF JOHN B. ALEXANDER, ESQ. May term, 1840. From the Record for Saturday morning, May 23, 1840: The court being in session, the Hon. Richard Coulter rose and announced to the court the death of John Byers Alexander, Esq., the eldest brother of this bar. 316 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. ALEXANDER WILLIAM FOSTER. Alexander William Foster was the son of Rev. William Foster, pastor of Octorara Church, in Sadsbury township, Chester County, Pa., and was born October, 1771. Et e studied law under Edward Burd, Esq., in Philadelphia, and became a member of the bar in 1793. In 1796 the Foster family removed from Chester County to Meadville, in Crawford County. In the same year he was employed as agent and lawyer by the Holland Land Company. He soon acquired such a reputation in his profession that his practice extended from Pittsburgh to Erie. In 1812 he was retained to go to .Greensburg to try a cause, and he so favorably impressed some litigants with his conducting of the case that he was retained by a number of suitors. He thereupon, instead of removing to Pittsburgh to locate permanently, as he had intended, settled in Greensburg, where he remained and practiced law until 1831, a period of nearly twenty years. Upon settling here he soon obtained a first-class practice, which, after the manner of the time, extended to the counties of Indiana and Armstrong. He was considered one of the best of his profession in this judicial district, and along with Coulter and Alexander formed the trio of leading lawyers at the bar of Westmoreland. A personal friend has thus described some of his professional characteristics. Mr. Foster did not possess the impassioned and florid eloquence of Richard Coulter, or the legal profundity of John B. Alexander, but his professional attainments were said to have been more extensive than those of the former, and he had a mental acumen and a power of extorting truth from witnesses beyond the ability of the latter. But if his oratorical powers were not splendid, yet he had great copiousness of language, and with a fluency without error or hesitation could express his ideas in words suitable to the subject. The fault of his oratory was that it was not concise and chaste, but in- That the members of the bar unanimously desire the ordinary business of the court be suspended for this day, that they may pay a merited and just tribute of respect to the memory of their deceased brother, and have an opportunity of attending his funeral :—Mr. Coulter said it was customary to give testimonials of respect to the memories of distinguished members of the bar by a suspension of the business on account of their decease, and he felt unmingled pleasure in offering to the court the full and entire concurrence of all the members of the bar in that practice. He said the brethren of the bar all acknowledged their indebtedness to Maj. Alexander for the many advantages they individually and collectively derived from their intercourse at the bar with him. They recollected his vigorous intellect, which seized with a giant's grip every cause in which he was professionally engaged; they recollected many passages of pleasant professional intercourse with the deceased, and now when he was removed from among them they desire to bear to his memory the token of respect which was accorded by the profession to their eminent brethren. He therefore moved the court to adjourn over this day . Per curium. We have pleasure in announcing to you our cordial approval of the practice suggested, and sincerely join with the members of the bar in their merited tribute to the memory of the deceased. The court then adjourned. clined to verbosity. If Foster was not profoundly learned in the law like Alexander, yet he was a well-read lawyer, and could always use, like ready change, all his legal information. Although inferior to Alexander before the court, he was superior before a jury. Here on an average he was equal to Coulter. He could not so readily move to wrath and tears, but could always expose knavery, detect fraud, and try to attain the truth in such a way as to force attention, excite mirth, and move to laughter. He had too much of the milk of human kindness in his bosom to be bitterly sarcastic, but his speeches were often, enlivened with humor and anecdote. Mr. Foster was of a kindly, genial disposition, fond of company and conversation. His office was said to have been the best ever in Greensburg for the study of the law. While other lawyers were reserved, taciturn, and often overbearing and supercilious, Foster was affable, courteous, and fond of communicating information. He frequently conferred with his students, put cases to them, and held in his office a kind of moot court. It was reported of several of Foster's students who rose to distinction in their profession that they learned more law orally from him than they had ever got by reading his books. Among his students were John Riddell, of Erie, Thomas Struthers, of Warren County, and Calvin Mason, of Fayette County, who in 1813 fought a duel with pistols with John B. Alexander. He practiced in Philadelphia, and died in that city. John F. Beaver also learned in the office of Mr. Foster all that legal chicanery which, added to his natural shrewdness, caused him to be considered the acutest attorney in the district, and it was in his office where Henry D. Foster, his nephew, got his law, upon whom the mantle of his uncle descended. Mr. Foster delighted in the subjects of agriculture, horticulture, and engineering ; wrote many articles on the practical applicability of chemistry to farming, and delivered many orations at the county fairs, then held at Greensburg. In 1820 and 1822 he was the Federalist candidate for Congress in the district composed of Westmoreland, Indiana, Armstrong, and Jefferson Counties. He was twice defeated because he was on the unpopular side. In 1820, in the strong Democratic county of Westmoreland, he obtained a small majority. After the dissolution of the Federalist party he became an anti-Mason, and after the collapse of that party he became a Whig. In person he was of middle size and weight, rather inclined to leanness than corpulency. His face was good, but it ordinarily wore a mild, amiable, and rather melancholy expression. His temperament was nervo-bilious, and his complexion sallow, with a tendency to pallor. He was greatly addicted to smoking. The cigar was his constant companion, and it was probably for his own use that he had hot-houses for the growth and cultivation of Spanish tobacco. THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 317 THE HANGING OF EVANS. No event in the history of the county was so much talked of and so long remembered as the hanging of Joseph Evans for murder in 1830. From an old copy of The Republican, dated 23d April, 1830, we briefly abstract the statement of the condemned man, made six days previous to his execution, which took place on Tuesday, 20th April, 1830, on a hill east of the town, and between the Southwest Railway and the Main Street, and was witnessed by several thousand people, who had gathered on the hillsides from far and near to see the law commit murder. Evans at the time of his execution was scarcely twenty-two years of age. He was even then some what wild, having been engaged repeatedly in fights, and in tarring and feathering and riding on a rail a man who had been guilty of beating his wife, cleaning out a house of ill fame, riding on a rail, shaving the heads,, and tarring and feathering two married men there caught, and breaking the jaw of a son of one of these men for inquiring into the matter, burning down another house of ill fame for two dollars, shaving the mane and tail of the horse of a Methodist preacher, and "lathering" the preacher so that he was laid up for two weeks. He assisted in riding on a rail and tarring and feathering a man and a woman who were cohabiting together in violation of the commandments, and in a manner which did violence to Evans' moral principles. These little extravaganzas gave zest to his life in his travels, and finally he landed in Derry township, where, one Sunday evening, he got into a dispute with Cissler about stealing a pair of shoes, but over a pint of apple brandy they became good friends. The night before Christmas he amused himself by whistling the " Boyne Water," and was rewarded for his music by a vigorous attack from three gentlemen who did not fancy the tune ; but it seems he was able to cope successfully with all three, and from this appears to date the real trouble which resulted in his acci-dentally taking the life of Cissler, and in consequence thereof losing his own. On the morning before New Year he and others amused and regaled themselves with cards and whiskey, and finally a quarrel ensued, whereupon several of the party fell on Evans (who does not seem to have been a favorite) to beat him. He seized the fire-shovel and swung it back and forth to keep them off, when Cissler, who was not in the melee, came up to stop the fight, and accidentally received a blow on the forehead from the shovel, and fell back upon a large iron kettle. He breathed only a few times, but never spoke. Evans made no effort to escape ; but when a large crowd had gathered, and attempted to tie him, he resisted so violently that they desisted and kept out of his reach. He then took the rope and tied his legs, when the crowd beat and abused him con- - 21 - siderably, upon which he got himself loose, and " slashed" around indiscriminately. After the inquest he was taken to Bairdstown, before Esquire Scott, and on the 2d of January, 1830, was lodged in jail in this place, and on the 18th of February, 1830, he was tried and found " guilty of murder in the first degree." In his comments upon portIons of the evidence he is very severe, and alleges that it contains not one word of truth. At the execution he was perfectly calm, and remarked to the sheriff, on surveying the assembled multitude, that " there were not so many people present as he had seen at such places." During the whole time from the time he left the jail, following the cart which contained his coffin, until the drop fell there was no sign of weakness or trepidation. Indeed, at the last moment he handed to some one on the plat-form below a drum, which he had used for a seat while the preparations were being perfected to launch him into eternity. At the scaffold the people, estimated to number seven or eight thousand, were addressed by Revs. Laird, Hacke, and Steck, and, at request of Evans, a hymn was sung.. He addressed the crowd, warning them against the vices of which he had been guilty, asserting the injustice done him by some of the wit-nesses, but forgiving all as he hoped for forgiveness. He seemed to be entirely resigned to his fate, and manifested no desire to live. This, with the two executions at Hannastown at a very early period, when that place was the county-seat, were the only ones that had taken place in this county until a generation after ; and now, after fifty years, it is the general judgment that the conviction and execution of Joseph Evans was more the result of clamor and prejudice, with also a considerable amount of false swearing, than from any regard for justice. JAMES FINDLAY, ESQ.—At the time of the trial of Evans the prosecuting attorney was James Findlay. The result showed that he only did his duty too well for justice and humanity, and it is a matter of regret that he could not have been retained for the defense of the unfortunate prisoner. At that time the bar of Greensburg possessed high character and great ability. It was dignified by the profound legal erudition of John B. Alexander, resplendent with the florid eloquence of Richard Coulter, adorned by the extensive attainments and enlivened by the wit and humor of Alexander Foster. Other gentlemen of talent contributed to elevate the character of the profession by mathematical knowledge, and rapid and accurate habits of business, so that the bar of Westmoreland was second to none outside of Philadelphia. Prominent among these gentlemen—primus inter pares—was James Findlay, Esq. The mention of his name in the Evans trial suggested the idea that a 318 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. brief biographical sketch would be an appropriate and respectful contribution to the memory of one so worthy that he deserved a monument. Although James Findlay possessed the undoubted ability to make a permanent reputation, yet he was so careless of future fame that he did nothing to perpetuate his memory with posterity. He " never wrote a book, built a house, planted a tree, or begot a child." For more than a generation his body has been mouldering in the clay of a cemetery. James Findlay, Esq., was born in 1801, on a farm that belonged to his father, about three miles from Mercersburg, in Franklin County. It was situated about one-half mile from the Presbyterian Church of West Conococheague, of which Dr. John King was pastor, by whom James Findlay was baptized. By the way, the reputation of Dr. King has extended far beyond the Alleghenies, and his memory is still held in respect, by many, to the spiritual wants of whose ancestors this gentleman had administered. In the fall of 1813, and in the twelfth year of James Findlay's age, his father removed his family to Harrisburg, which had become the seat of State government. James Findlay resided at Harrisburg, and was a pupil at the best school in town until 1820, when he was matriculated at Princeton College, which was then regarded as one of the best institutions of learning in the United States, and whereat his brother Archibald and other relations had graduated. William Findlay had lived in a style of old-fashioned hospitality at Harrisburg, and in consequence of stringency in his pecuniary affairs he could not afford to keep James at Princeton until he graduated. He was forced to leave his alma mater and return to. Harrisburg, where he became a student of law in the office of Francis R. Shunk, who was married to his only sister, who afterwards became so well known as the matronly lady that with such ease and dignity presided over the hospitality of the executive mansion at Harrisburg. After his admission to the bar by the Court of Common Pleas of Dauphin County, James Findlay opened a law-office at York, in Eastern Pennsylvania. But York was an old county, her land titles well settled, and the litigation comparatively unimportant. So Mr. Findlay removed to Westmoreland County. On motion of George Armstrong, Esq., was admitted to the bar of Greensburg, Aug. 23, A.D. 1824. Greensburg was a good location for Mr. Findlay. The legal business was abundant and remunerative. Lawyers from Pittsburgh and other counties attended the courts of Westmoreland. The natural talents, liberal education, and thorough legal training of Mr. Findlay would soon have placed him at the head of his profession. In politics he had open to him a primrose path to honor and emolument. Upon his location in Greensburg he received the appointment of prosecuting attorney, the duties of which he discharged with integrity and ability. During his term of office there was no composition of felony, and no escape of wealthy criminals by flaws in indictments. The name of Findlay was identified with Democracy, Gen. Jackson had been elected President of the United States, and Wolf Governor of Pennsylvania. And so nation, State, district, and county were all in the hands of Mr. Findlay's political friends. To the public coffers his name was an "open sesame." Had James Findlay been ambitious of political distinction he needed but remain in Westmoreland and adhere to his party, and every round of the political ladder was accessible to his footsteps. He could early have attained any position ever held by his worthy and honored father. In 1831, Mr. Findlay was elected to the Legislature. He was re-elected in 1832 and 1833. In December, 1833, Samuel McLean, who was Secretary of the Commonwealth, was elected to the Senate of the United States. Such was the reputation of James Findlay that Governor Wolf at once tendered him the vacant office. He resigned his seat in the Lower House, of which he was then Speaker, and accepted the office of Secretary of the Commonwealth. The old citizens of Westmoreland will remember that in the winter of 1834 there was a special election for a member of the Lower House to supply the vacancy caused by the appointment of Mr. Findlay. It was currently reported and believed that Governor Wolf had expressed a personal wish that Westmoreland would honor herself and the State by sending to the Legislature a man qualified in talent and reputation to succeed James Findlay. " Suppose," said the leading citizens, " that Westmoreland surprises and pleases the Governor by sending a better man?" The notion tickled the political gossips, and so, amid much firing of cannon, wild roaring of the rabblement, and great guzzling of powerful potations, Maj. John B. Alexander was unanimously returned to the Legislature. Historians inform us Caligula, Emperor of Rome, gave his horse a place in the Senate, and had him proclaimed First Consul. As Maj. Alexander held the opinion that our legislators belong to the equine genus as clearly as donkeys, he astonished the Governor and natives by riding his splendid horse, Somerset, to Harrisburg, and by doing nothing apparently while there but instructing the animal in the mysteries of legislation. It is said that after staying a few days in Harrisburg, and looking at and mingling with the members of the House, he mounted his splendid steed and came away, stating in language considerably more emphatic than elegant that they were a set of ignoramuses, and he would have nothing to do with them. James Findlay remained at Harrisburg, discharging the duties of the office of Secretary of State, until the inauguration of Governor Ritner. In the early part THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 319 of 1836 he removed to Pittsburgh and recommenced the practice of his profession. In politics there were many things unsuited to the mind and manners of Mr. Findlay. Their intrigues, violence, selfishness, and rancor must have often disgusted his candor, disturbed his equanimity, and shocked his refinement. His pecuniary affairs demanded some attention, and so instead of returning to Westmoreland he located himself in Pittsburgh and devoted himself to the duties of his profession. In a short timehe rose to prominence, gained the deep respect of his fellow-members of the bar and the confidence of clients. Francis R. Shunk, a gentleman of an old and respectable family in Eastern Pennsylvania, had married Miss Findlay, opened a law-office in Harrisburg, and filled several public offices. In January, 1839, he was appointed Secretary of State to Governor Porter. He held this office until 1842, when he removed to Pittsburgh, and entered into partnership with his brother-in-law, James Findlay. The partners admirably suited each other. The superb penmanship, habits of order and industry, knowledge of forms, and strong constitution well fitted Shunk for the manual labor of the profession, while Findlay could readily and amply supply the logic, rhetoric, and legal erudition necessary for success before court and jury. Of the pair it might be safely said, without an iota of irony, par nobile fratrum. The firm was on the high road to pre-eminent professional success, when, unfortunately, James Findlay took sick and died in 1843, in the forty-second year of his age, about a twelvemonth before Francis R. Shunk was elected Governor of Pennsylvania. It is somewhat singular that Mr. Findlay never married. He was so amiable in disposition, so regular in habits and domestic in manners that he was well adapted to receive and confer happiness upon a proper partner. The personal appearance of Mr. Findlay was very agreeable. He was rather over than under middle height, straight, and well proportioned. His complexion was fair, his flair light brown, his forehead broad and high, and his features very pleasant, because constantly expressive of kindness and good humor. His mouth was rather too large, but it was filled with regular and beautiful teeth as white as ivory. He dressed plainly, but with good taste, and, as he was very near-sighted, he always wore silver spectacles. His manners were courteous, and about all that he did there was an air of refinement. In this country, where there is no aristocracy, no gentry, no arbitrary distinctions, so that a proper classification of society becomes difficult, if not impossible, and yet there was about James Findlay that nescio quid, that peculiar je ne sais quoi, which makes even a total stranger feel that this is a gentleman. His morals were as pure as a virgin snow-drift. Coarse profanity and witty obscenity were common and, with some, commendable in his profession. Although not disposed to be rigidly righteous, Mr. Findlay held both swearing and black guarding to be contra bonos mores,—against good morals and good manners. He was not a member of any church, but his amiable disposition and enlightened conscience produced all the effects of true and heartfelt religion, namely, decency, integrity, and charity. "If cleanliness be godliness," then Mr. Findlay was a model Christian, for he was never guilty of a dirty skin, dirty garment, dirty trick, or dirty expression. The status of Mr. Findlay in his profession was highly respectable for one of his age. His mind was logical and discriminating, and his memory so good that he retained whatever he read. • Wherever he practiced, he was employed against the best men of his professional cotemporaries. A legal friend, who knew him long and intimately, thus speaks of him : " I think I may say that no one ever enjoyed in a greater degree the respect and affection of his professional brethren. This was strikingly manifested at the time of his death. The gentlemen of the Pittsburgh bar paid him the unusual, it may be the unprecedented, mark of respect of closing their offices during his funeral." 1 RICHARD COULTER, JUSTICE S. C. Richard Coulter was born in Allegheny County, Pa., in what is now .Versailles township, 2 in March, 1788. He was early sent to Jefferson College, but he did not remain there for graduation. He read law with John Lyon, Esq., at Uniontown, Fayette Co., and on the 19th of. November, 1810, was admitted to practice in the courts of that county. 3 On Feb. 18, 1811, on motion of John B. Alexander, Esq., he was admitted an attorney of the courts of Westmoreland. In 1816 and 1817 he was elected to the Assembly on the ticket in opposition to the then Republican 1 William Findlay, the father of James, was ar. active and leading politician, whose services were intimately connected with the history of the State of Pennsylvania. In 1790 he was a member of the Convention which framed the constitution of the State and continued to be the fundamental law until 1838. In 1807 he was chosen to be treasurer of the State. In 1817 he was elected Governor of Pennsylvania, beating Joseph Hiester, the Federalist candidate, by a majority of several thousands. lu 1820 he was again a candidate for Governor against the same man, and at this election he was defeated. In 1821, William Findlay was elected United States senator, and was a member of that body until the end of his senatorial term in 1827. The gentleman from whose reminiscences of Findlay we have o largely drawn thus wanders into the clouds: "James Buchanan and James Findlay were both of Scotch-Irish decent, and were born at the same locality of Conococheague, near Mercersburg. Both had been born and bred Presbyterians, and were both baptized by the sane pastor, Dr. John King. They were both Democrats, one by conversion and the other by inheritance. They were both liberally educated, and both lawyers by profession. They were both bachelors. They were both moral men. They were both gentlemen in dress and manners. Had Buchanan died at the age of forty-two, he might have been esteemed to be a kind-hearted and generous gentleman, a good lawyer and patriotic citizen. Had Findlay lived until threescore and ten, he might have been President of the United States and been as much denounced as James Buchanan." 2 There is now a coal town located near this spot called Coultersville. 3 His examining committee were James ROM, of Pittsburgh; Parker Campbell, of Washington ; and Thomas Meason, of Uniontown. 320 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. party. In 1818 he was on what was called by the opposition the Federal ticket, and was elected to the same office, and was the only one elected on that ticket. So, also, in 1819, In 1820 he was a candidate on what was called the Independent Republican ticket for the same office, and was the only one elected on that ticket, the Democratic ticket going through for the rest. In 1821 he was defeated by ninety-three votes. In 1826 he was nominated as an independent candidate for Congress, James Clarke being the regular Democratic nominee, and was elected. In 1828 he was elected without opposition. He was also elected in 1830 and 1832, then as the regular Democratic nominee, but in 1834 was defeated by Mr. John Klingensmith. In the mean time he had practiced law until Sept. 16, 1846, when he was appointed a justice of the Supreme Court by Governor Shunk, and again, after the approval of the Senate, Feb. 17, 1847, from which time his commission ran for fifteen years. Under the then new constitution, Oct. 2, 1851, he was elected and commissioned associate justice for fifteen years, he having drawn the long term. He died Tuesday, April 20, 1852, at Greensburg, Pa. What follows may convey something of an impression, although an inadequate one, of the political, legal, and literary character, as they are evidenced in the public career of this distinguished citizen. When, in 1832, Mr. Coulter was sent to Congress, he was sent as the leader of the Democratic party in the county. He was the best speaker and writer in his party here, and he had made such a reputation in Congress that the Democrats at home were proud of their representative. But most unfortunately Mr. Coulter disagreed with his constituents and with the Jackson administration on the subject of the United States Bank and the custody of the public money. As he was a strong advocate of the recharter of a national bank, the Democrats of his district refused to renominate him, when he offered himself to the people as a volunteer candidate. The congressional district was then composed of Westmoreland and Indiana, and it was thought that he, by his eloquence and personal popularity, would overcome the usual Democratic majority in Westmoreland. The Democrats put in nomination against him John Klingensmith, a plain man of German descent, but an active and insinuating party man of some influence among his own class. He was chosen as the strongest man in the county. There was at that time in those districts wherein this German element predominated a marked clannish or national feeling. A man of German descent, who spoke the German language, would always receive more than his party vote. It was held that Klingensmith would receive the votes of all his freundschaft, and of persons who, although not Democrats, were of Teutonic descent. Indiana was an anti-Masonic county. Coulter was a well-known Mason, who in the violent disputes with the anti-Masons had been put forward as a champion of the " brethren of the mystic tie." To obtain the vote of Indiana County he openly renounced Masonry. His letter of renunciation will be found in the old files of the Greensburg papers. The election was hot ; his political opponents used every argument and every incentive to defeat him when it was possible to do so by dissension in his own party ; and notwithstanding his own high character and the great exertions of his friends he was defeated. He was a man of courage and of unquestioned talent, but he could not stem the strong current of Jackson Democracy. After his defeat Mr. Coulter withdrew from politics, and gave his whole time and attention to his profession. His defeat in all probability was beneficial to him in more than one point. His engagement in active political life had caused him to neglect his business pursuits. His habits henceforth became more even, and his attention ceasing to be distracted by the fascination of political life, he shortly obtained one of the most, if not altogether the most, lucrative practices at the bar. His defeat helped to make him a wealthy man, and in all probability prolonged his life. For the habits of a public life, such as it then was at the seat of government, were entirely different from those which prevailed about a county-seat of justice, and necessitated a continuous and tireless mental activity, and one scarcely ever in harmony with a judicial cast of mind. But although he had withdrawn from politics, it was generally known that he sympathized with the anti-Democratic party, which had then assumed the name of Whig. He voted in 1840 for Gen. Harrison, and in 1844 he was chosen chairman of the Clay and Markle County Committee. In this position he wrote and published a handsome, nervous address to the voters, which will be found in the files of the Greensburg Intelligencer. To the astonishment of the public, shortly before the election he changed sides and openly voted for Shunk and Polk. The power of appointment of judges was then vested in the Governor. Some time in 1846 a vacancy occurred in the Supreme Court. Governor Shunk was petitioned to appoint Coulter to the vacancy. Among these petitioners the most active were the members of the Westmoreland bar without respect of party. They had some outside influence and co-operation in their efforts. The Rev. James Brownson, the pastor of the Presbyterian Church to which Coulter and his family were attached, was a nephew of Governor Shunk by marriage, his mother being a full sister of Mrs. Shunk. As Westmoreland had given the Governor some two thousand majority, he could not well refuse the solicitation of the party leaders here. Coulter was therefore appointed by Governor Shunk associate justice of the Supreme Court in the stead of Justice Kennedy, deceased Jan. 8, 1847. In 1850 the constitution was amended so as to give the election of judges to the people. Among the THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 321 vacancies to be filled at the election of 1851 was that of chief justice and an associate justice of the Supreme Court. John Bannister Gibson and James Campbell were nominated for these offices by the Democrats, and William L. Meredith and Richard Coulter by the Whigs. All the Whig candidates—Governor and judges—were defeated except Richard Coulter, who was elected by a majority of some thou-sands over James Campbell. Mr. Campbell was a lawyer of Philadelphia, and was subsequently Post-master-General under President Pierce. The opinions of Judge Coulter while he was on the bench by appointment, and his upright conduct, were regarded by honest and religious men with so much favor that the Whigs tendered him the nomination without any intrigue or personal solicitation from his friends or himself. He early distinguished himself on the bench in an elaborate opinion in the case of David Hummell et al. versus Dr. Mercer Brown et al., in which he at great length defined and gave judicial status to the legislative power of the State in the creation and control of corporations, particularly those of an eleemosynary character. At the time of its rendition, 1847, it was regarded by lawyers as one of the ablest and most eloquent opinions ever delivered from the bench of the Supreme Court. The character of Mr. Coulter as a judge was highly respectable. As a lawyer he may not have been equal to Gibson, but he was equal to Bell, of Chester, and su-perior to Rogers and Burnside. He was incorruptible, and his course was such as to enlarge the confidence of appellants. While other judges were more or less controlled by the mastery of Gibson, Coulter was sternly independent. For example, on the Sunday law question he disagreed with all the other judges. On this question being brought before them they rested the observance of Sunday on the laws of Pennsylvania. Judge Coulter regarded it as a Christian Sabbath, and rested its observance on positive command from Almighty God. He assumed, in short, the higher law position. The arguments and opinions are found in the reports, and should be read by students. As a politician, Coulter was charged with inconsistency and whimsical changes of opinion and party. But perhaps there were good sense and sound judgment at the bottom. He had been a Federalist, and became a Democrat under the wing of Jackson. The Jackson Democrats a long time maintained sound Federalist measures,—a protective tariff, a national bank, and a general system of internal improvements. The highest protective tariff bill that any of the old Congresses ever passed was signed by Andrew Jackson in 1828. But when Jackson adopted the opinions of the States' Rights men, and used the veto power to derange the financial system of the country, Coulter had the courage to resist the administration and maintain a consistent position. His conduct in 1844 appeared very strange, but it was afterwards seen to be politic. It was understood by intelligent poli-ticians that if Binney and Le Moyne, the anti-slavery candidates for President and Governor, remained in the field Clay and Markle would be defeated. The election was to be decided by combinations and arrangement. Of this Coulter was fully aware, and no doubt knew that in maintaining a consistent position he was doing no good to Clay and Markle, and was only condemning himself to obscurity and the monotonous life of a dull country town. His influence with the leading Democratic leaders in the county was still strong ; the past was forgotten, and they came to his aid when he called upon them. Mr. Coulter was fiercely and coarsely assailed for his renunciation of what Voltaire calls the "tom-foolery of Freemasonry" when he was a candidate for re-election to Congress. But he could not have obtained a majority in Indiana County unless he had renounced Masonry, and his connection with the Masons was broken off for the patriotic purpose, RS was said, of serving the substantial interests of the whole country. It must be remembered that as a representative in Congress he occupied a front posi-tion. The election in this district was regarded with anxiety throughout the State, and his defeat was de-plored by the opponents of the administration. A leading opposition paper lamented his defeat in the following language: " Poor Pennsylvania! she is the Bceotia of the Union ! Where else could such a man as Richard Coulter have been defeated by such an unknown and illiterate person as his antagonist ?" Judge Coulter was well read in politics, theology, law, and literature. His private library, both law and literary, was excellent. The evidences of his scholarship will be found in his political controversy with Dr. Postlethwaite, his miscellaneous writings,— such as " The Burning of Hannastown," " Address" to the Whigs in 1844,—and in, his reported opinions when on the Supreme Bench. The controversy with Dr. Postlethwaite may be found in the old files of the county newspapers. While in Congress he made a very long speech for the recharter of the Bank of the United States, a copy of which in manuscript has been retained in his family.' His letter of renunciation of Masonry is beautifully written, and worthy of republication by reason of its literary merit. His speeches, addresses, and select miscellanies would fill a well-sized volume. His style, easy and good, is also flowery, ornate, and oratorical. But he was a bachelor and fond of poetry and novels. Of all the lawyers at the Greensburg bar he was the greatest orator. Traditions of his powers and of his wonderful effect over jurors and even large assemblages are still preserved, and it is likely that no man of or- 1 We have had access to this, and we regard it as a patriotic, scholarly, and profound argument, and an able presentation of that side of the controversy. 322 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. dinary intellect who beard his celebrated speech on the trial of Tom Morgan will ever forget its effect. Great as a lawyer as Judge Coulter was, those who are well informed as to his talents and parts are of opinion he might have been still greater and have been able to attain a higher position in his profession had he given all his time and abilities to that profession. He was the best general scholar of all the lawyers at the Greensburg bar, and a better one than any of the judges on the bench of the Supreme Court. In touching upon the moral character of Judge Coulter it may well be said that he had will-power sufficient to break away from the customs and habits which, although at that time were with professional men not bad, yet common, and such as were not regarded without a certain degree of favor. But oppositely all his influence was on the side of morality and religion. His professional character was stainless. He was upright, truth-telling, and honorable, and made money by fair labor in his profession. In all the hot political contests he was never charged with meanness, chicanery, or the exaction of exorbitant fees. Although sometimes whimsical and charged with ill temper, he was a person of humanity, and disposed to protect the weak and friendless. Altogether he was an upright, moral man and a patriotic citizen. JOHN F. BEAVER.—The story of the life and professional services of John F. Beaver is so well told in the following article, which appeared upon the announcement of his death, and which was written by an able member of this bar and an intimate friend of Mr. Beaver, that we might mar it by adding anything to it that we have collected from other sources. John F. Beaver died at his residence at Newton Falls, Ohio, on the 12th of June, 1877. Although more than thirty years had gone by since Mr. Beaver left here, his name, fame, and person were still fresh in the recollection of many of our people. In fact, it was not possible for any who once knew him ever to forget him, as his genial character and exuberant flow of animal spirits rendered him conspicuous in every company. He was born near Stoystown, in Somerset County, his maternal grandfather, Daniel M. Stoy, Esq., having given a name to that village as its original proprietor. His father, Henry Beaver, removed some years after, with his family, to Grapeville, in this county, where the subject of this sketch continued to live till about 1843 or 1844, when he removed to the place where he died. He left a widow and one son to enjoy a large estate, the fruit of his industry and economy. His physical organization was remarkable, and he excelled all his fellows in athletic sports and exercises which required strength and precision of muscular action. In his prime his weight was about two hundred and twenty-five pounds, bone and muscle, and old men still tell of his wonderful feats of skill and strength, which were always accompanied with some humorous freak to attract the crowd. For a wager he would stipulate to pitch a quoit into the hat of his antagonist fourteen times out of fifteen a distance of forty yards. Having won at the expense of the hat he would console the owner by buying him a new one. With the rifle he was unerring, anything but the centre being with him an exceptional accident. Hearing, upon one occasion, of a match to shoot for a bear in a remote part of the county, he dropped in, and was solicited to take a stake to make up the match, which he could not decline, for fear of spoiling the fun. The first trouble was to fix the distance from the mark. This he appeased by proposing that each marksman should put down his number of yards, then divide the aggregate by the number of the stakes. He was the clerk and entered last, putting down one yard, wanting, he said, to get as nigh as possible to the target. On footing up and dividing the result was what he expected and brought about, but there was no suspicion. The next difficulty was his want of a gun, and his awkwardness was so apparent that none of the company liked to intrust him with one. A boy was, however, discovered on the road at some distance with a ponderous, rusty-looking fire-lock, which after much haggling he agreed to lend for the occasion, provided they would not tell his father. The firing then commenced, and when Beaver's turn came they kindly volunteered to show him how to hold the weapon, how to look through the sights, and so on. He was very unsteady, but somehow or other the nail was driven and the paper fell.. This was rare sport, and the luck of the lawyer was marvelous. The second round was followed by the same result. Then there was not so much laughing, and the suspicion increased when some of the bystanders saw a chain hanging out of the boy's pocket. He was equally nervous and equally successful on the last round, when the boy chained the bear to lead him away. He was Beaver's boy, with Beaver's gun and chain. The finishing stroke was to furnish the whole party with a good dinner, and secure them as friends and clients ever after. At about the age of twenty-one Beaver cut himself with an axe, and was confinea to his house for some weeks. This was intolerable to his active spirit, and he must do something, and there was only one thing he could think of. He was utterly illiterate, barely able to had, but seeing a copy of " Smith's Laws," which had belonged to his grandfather Stoy when a justice of the peace, he determined to attack them, dry as they were. This he did with so much zeal and vigor that by the time his wound healed he was the confidential adviser of all his neighbors in the law. He then learned surveying, and after mastering that art practically he concluded to study law regu- THE LEGAL PROFESSION - 323 early, and for this purpose put himself under the direction of A. W. Foster, Esq., a good tutor and eminent lawyer, who thought he saw in this young Hercules something better even than muscle, and he encouraged him to persevere. He read law for five years, boarding all that time in Grapeville, four miles from Greensburg, and walking in and out every day. He was admitted to the bar in February, 1833, and was soon in a large practice. He was first an anti-Mason in politics, and afterwards a Whig, then one of the original Free-Soil party. He ran for Congress in 1840 as a Whig, but was defeated by A. G. Marchand, Esq. The senior editor of the Argus, John M. Laird, Esq., was during the campaign chairman of the Democratic County Convention to prepare resolutions of the sense of that body. He and Beaver stopped at the same hotel. Laird called his committee and had his resolutions already " cut and dry" for the meeting in the afternoon. His head was about thirty inches, more or less, and Beaver's was of the same size, and when Laird went to dinner he mistook his hat, and put his resolutions in Beaver's hat. Beaver went into court, and among other things presented to the court was Laird's resolutions, denouncing him (Beaver) as a scamp and unworthy of any respectable citizen's support. The court (Judge White), as fond of fun as anybody, gravely decided that he had no jurisdiction of the matter, and the resolutions were returned to Mr. Laird and duly passed by the convention. Such was the good humor and fun of our old men forty years ago. About this time he did a good deal of professional business in Allegheny, and in 1842 sold his library and office furniture to Edward Cowan, Esq., with whom he was a short time in partnership, but removed to Ohio in a year or two thereafter. His success at the bar and in the Supreme Court was very marked, being a great favorite with the judges on account of his fair and candid bearing towards them. As soon as he was qualified in Ohio he was elected to the Senate of that State, and attracted great attention and consideation by his size, dress, and singular ability. The Senate was a tie without him, and he was looked for with great anxiety when that body met. He arrived just in the nick of time, his wagon having broken down on the way ; he had walked twelve miles that morning. He was a stranger, covered with mud, and as he strode into the chamber he was greeted with cheers, and his " boots" became famous in song and story for years after. He was leader for some time, but he could not work well in the harness of party, and he gave up his chances for promotion to enjoy independence of thought and action in the practice of his profession, which he continued till the last. In the mean time he was industriously enlarging the boundaries of his knowledge in every direction, and continued his efforts through life, until at last he had few equals in all the fields of human learning. His memory was astonishing, extending to the minutest details, even dates and figures in all his business transactions ; and he has been known to reproduce a draught of the courses and distances of a tract of land he had surveyed years before by mere force of his recollection. He was a fearless inquirer and thinker, and, like all men of great energy and full of animal spirits, he was prone to be a reformer by remodeling the world according to modern ideas. Nor did failure seem to discourage him, as a new scheme was at hand always anti ready for adoption. His manners were easy and entirely unaffected, and no amount of provocation could disturb the equanimity of his temper or give him a second thought. He treasured no malice, and seemed incapable of hating anybody for any length of time. He had no vanity or pride, took no thought of himself or his person, and if clothes had been indestructible he would have worn the same suit forever. Mr. Cowan once having in various ways got his measures, procured for him a new suit of fashionable clothes, based upon a pair of polished boots, and surmounted by a great white "stove-pipe" hat. There was some coaxing necessary to get him to don the " rig," but once on and in the street the town turned out to give him an ovation. He was the hero par eminence of the young men. His great physique, kind and genial disposition had for them irresistible attractions, and they followed him for instruction as well as entertainment. He belonged to a class of men produced in Western Pennsylvania, of nearly the same age, and who were equal, at least, to any of a like area in the Union. Ogle, Black, and Elder were of Somerset—" frosty sons of thunder ;" Black, still wielding his ponderous spear, now without a rival ; Ewing, Veech, Patterson, and Kaine sustained the old renown of Fayette, while Coulter, Thomas Williams, Governor Johnston, and Foster gave fame and credit to old Westmoreland. Some have disappeared, and the rest are fast disappearing ; but they are not forgotten, and will not be as long as genuine merit has admirers. ALBERT GALLATIN MARCHAND was born Feb. 26, 1811, and died Feb. 5,1848, in the thirty-seventh year of his age. The disease of which he died made itself known but a few months before his death, but it had been secretly undermining his constitution for a long time prior to that. At a very early age he went into the prothonotary's office as an assistant to his father, Dr. David Marchand. He even then displayed remarkable business talents ; but the urbanity and politeness of his manner, his obliging and kind and courteous disposition, always manifesting itself towards those who were brought into business intercourse with him, secured for him the admiration, confidence, and esteem of the foremost business men and litigants of the county. 324 - HISTORY OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA. He came to the bar in 1833, and when he did so he at once succeeded to a much larger practice than is usual with beginners in this profession. This continued until his death. To this profession he devoted very respectable legal talents, considerable learning, great zeal, and untiring industry. No man's cause was left in his hands without receiving the carefullest and most critical attention, and when it was necessary to carry it to the bar he was assiduous in his preparation, and there advocated or defended with manly zeal and vigorous eloquence. His intercourse with members of the bar was characterized with scrupulous integrity, a high sense of honor, and a candid frankness ; and these traits were evidenced in his intercourse with his fellow-men generally. He thus attained, for one of his age, a very high eminence in those qualities that confer dignity and honor on his profession. The clients who intrusted business to him had all confidence that everything would be done for them. His integrity was beyond a question, and his word as good as his bond. He was early and sincerely attached to his party, the Democratic, and his fellow-citizens recognizing his worth, early conferred upon him honorable office. In 1840, when in his twenty-eighth year, he was elected to Congress in the district composed of Westmoreland and Indiana Counties. When he first took his seat, during the administration of Harrison, he was the youngest member except one. In 1842 he was elected for another term. He possessed those strong traits of character very prominent in his family, a love for home and for the domestic circle, and preferred the endearments of wife and children and of devoted relations above the loud voice of popular applause. His loss was deeply felt, for when one so young, so talented, so honored, and so beloved, a patriot so ardent and a friend so true as he was thus so suddenly called away from the circle in which he moved, the hearts of all were clouded with grief, and with these his memory was long sacredly treasured. HON. HENRY DONNELL FOSTER. But scant justice can be done in the limits of a sketch like this to the memory of a man who filled so large a place while living in the esteem and affection of the community in which his life's work was done, one so distinguished as a lawyer, statesman, and jurist. Henry Donnell Foster was born in Mercer, Mercer Co., Pa., Dec. 19, 1808. He was a descendant of distinguished Scottish, English, and Dutch stock. The Fosters were noted for their learning and ability generations before they came to this country, more than a century and a half ago. They were of that God-fearing liberty-loving race which fought so long and so fearlessly against the religious intolerance which devastated Scotland in the bloody years before the time of Cromwell. They were among the refugees who fled to the North of Ireland for peace and safety, and where they soon became a family of note and influence among the Scotch-Irish colonists. From this stock came Alexander Foster, the ancestor of the subject of this sketch, who, with his three young sons, William, James, and John, emigrated from Londonderry in the year 1725, and settled in Freehold, N. J. On the maternal side, Mr. Foster was descended from the English Lords Townley, who were prominent Roman Catholics, and lived in Lancashire, where they held large estates. The maternal ancestor of the Fosters who first came to this country was Mary Townley, the wife of William Lawrence. She was a sister of the then Lord Townley, the head of the family. Mary became a Protestant, and married William Lawrence, which so scandalized her Roman Catholic brother that he forbade her ever entering his house again. She went with her husband and many others in that famous emigration to Holland which preceded the Puritan emigration to the bleak shores of New England. After a residence of two years, she and her husband set sail from the harbor of Delft Haven for America, with Plymouth, Mass., as their destination. Their reckoning became lost in a severe storm during the passage, and they were compelled to land at the mouth of the Hudson, among the Dutch settlements. Their eldest son, William, married and settled at Flushing, Long Island. The daughter married a Van Hook, and lived on the Hudson near New York, or New Amsterdam, as it was then called. Their son, Lawence Van Hook, was a. judge of the court in that city. His daughter Frances married the Rev. Samuel Blair. She was the great-grandmother of Mr. Foster. Of the three sons who came to America with their father, Alexander Foster, James, when grown, went to Washington County, Pa., where he made extensive purchases of lands and became a farmer. He was the grandfather of the celebrated American musical composer, Stephen C. Foster, also of William B. Foster, Jr., at one time vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and of Morrison Foster, of Allegheny City. John went South and settled in Tennessee, where his descendants have been distinguished citizens, eminent in the councils of their State, and before the civil war in those of the nation. William, the remaining son, the grandfather of Mr. Foster, studied for the ministry and settled in Octorara township, Chester Co., Pa., where he preached the gospel until the time of his death. He was born in Little Britain township, Lancaster Co., in 1740. He was graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1764, having for his cotemporaries in that institution David Ramsay, the historian, Judge Jacob Rush, Oliver Ellsworth, Nathaniel Niles, and Luther Martin. He was taken under the care of the Presbytery of New Castle as a probationer for the ministry, Oct. 23, 1766,